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ALFALFA 

"THE GRASS" 

IN OHIO 

Where, How and Why to Grow It 



Allen O. Myers 

Darby, Cincinnati Weekly Enquirer 

Alfalfa Place, Franklin County, Ohio 



PRICE ONE DOLLAR 



Columbus, Ohio : 

The F. J. Heer Printing Co, 

1907 



^ 






*RY ttt congress] 



Iwo Cnoles Received 

SEP 11 »90/' 

CLASS /I XXC, NO. 

COPY a. 



Copyright Granted in 1907 



ALLEN O. MYBR3 
Ohio 



ALFALFA 

"THE GRASS" 

Giving information based on the successes and failures 

of the grower, showing the soils on which to grow it, 

the enormous yields, the feeding value, its worth 

as a fertilizer and restorer of the fertility 

of worn out soils, pasturing stock, its 

cultivation, and how to harvest 

and cure it. 



By Allen O. Myers 



DEDICATION. 

This volume is respectfully dedicated to 
the officers, members, zvorkers and lecturers 
of the Ohio Farmers' Institutes, which in the 
last twenty years have contributed more than 
all other causes combined, except the farmer 
himself, to the advancement and progress of 
agriculture in our state. 
(5) 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



Chapter 



I. 

II. 

III. 

IV. 

V. 

VI. 

VII. 

VIII. 

IX. 

X. 

XI. 

XII. 

XIII. 

XIV. 

XV. 

XVI. 
XVII. 

XVIII. 

XIX. 

XX. 

XXI. 

XXII. 

XXIII. 



Title. Page. 

Dedication 5 

The Reason Why 9 

In the Beginning 13 

Alfalfa in Ohio 17 

Description of the Plant, Seed, etc 27 

From City to Country 83 

A Description of the Land 37 

How I Came to Grow Alfalfa 47 

The Land that will Grow Alfalfa in Ohio 57 

Preparing the Land for Alfalfa f>7 

When to Sow Alfalfa in Ohio 75 

The Seed and the Amount to Sow 81 

Care and Culture of Alfalfa in Ohio 89 

Making Alfalfa Hay in Ohio 97 

The Enemies of Alfalfa in Ohio 107 

Pasturing Alfalfa in Ohio 115 

The Value of Alfalfa and its Future in Ohio 

as compared with Grain and otlier Grasses. 123 

Ohio Grown Alfalfa Seed 135 

Alfalfa as a Soil Renovator — Fertilizer and 

Manure 143 

Alfalfa in Rotation of Crop.*^ 157 

Reseeding Alfalfa in Ohio 166 

Alfalfa in the Towns and Cities of Ohio 169 

Alfalfa and Moisture 173 

Alfalfa and Farm Values in Ohio 181 

Conclusion 185 

(7) 



THE REASON WHY. 



ii y^""N F making books there is no end." One 
I 1 of the Bible sages wrote this over two 
^— «^ thousand years ago, before the art of 
printing was invented, when all books were laboriously 
produced by hand, on skins or other rude materials. 
Had he lived in our day and seen the flood of books 
and mass of printed matter turned loose daily upon a 
patient and long-suffering world he could not have 
found language to express his amazement. 

In setting adrift this waif upon the great ocean 
of literature, my sole ambition, and earnest hope, is that 
it may carry a message of promise, of profit and pleas- 
ure to every farmer in Ohio before its mission is ful- 
filled and it sinks into that oblivion which, in the natu- 
ral order of things, must swallow up the book and its 
author. 

In seven years spent in the culture of alfalfa, its 
possibilities and its many wonderful and magnificent 
qualities as a farm product, and as a feed for every- 
thing that wears hair or feathers, has grown upon me 
until I begin to realize that it would restore thousands 
of acres lying idle and waste in Ohio, and make them 
productive and valuable, and thus increase the profits 
and comforts of life for the honest and sturdy tillers 

(9) 



10 Alfalfa, "The Grass.'* 

of the soil. As these truths grev/ upon me I felt 
that I had no right to keep this knowledge and its 
benefits for my own selfish use, but that I could do 
no greater good in my day and generation than by 
sending this message to the fireside of every farm 
house and let all who will enjoy the rewards that 
must follow the culture of the grandest grass that the 
creator has given to man and all animals that minister 
to his comforts. 

For years, unfortunately, the farmer who desired 
to grow alfalfa has been deterred from making the 
effort by the many obstacles that have been conjured 
up by corporations and combines and by the "scientific 
fundamentals" of professional agriculturists, who plow 
in axminster carpets, sow on mahogany desks, spit 
in porcelain spittoons, plow in revolving chairs, and 
harvest their crop, every month, when they draw big, 
fat salaries from some other fellow's earnings. One 
reason why I have written this book is to save the 
real farmer from the delusions of the scientific theorist 
and selfish interests, and show him that growing alfalfa 
is a simple and easy task, based upon practical experi- 
ence and common sense. 

Allen O. Myers. 

Alfalfa Place, Franklin County, Ohio, April 7, 
1907. 



In the Beginning. 

(11) 




< 



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CHAPTER I. 
In the Beginning. 

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." 
"And God said let the earth bring forth grass." 
"And the earth brought forth grass." 

Genesis, Chap. I. 

From the beginning, Alfalfa, lucerne, medic or 
clover has held the first place among the grasses of 
the old world, and in the earliest annals of the race, 
in central Asia, its culture and importance was recog- 
nized and recorded. The Greeks and Romans intro- 
duced it into Europe, and the Arabs carried it to 
Africa and Spain and gave it the name by which it 
is now known, "Alfalfa," which means "the grass." 
In Africa it is now known as "alfa grass." This 
name was given by a race that has produced the best 
breed of horses in the world. The name "Alfalfa" 
was given because it was superior as feed and pasture 
to any other grass that grew. 

One of the earliest mentions of it in modern his- 
tory is in Gibbon's Roman Empire. He says the in- 
troduction of lucerne (Alfalfa) into Italy from Persia, 
by the Romans, gave great encouragement to agri- 
cutlture, by increasing the number of cattle and in- 
creasing the fertility of the soil and more than doub- 
ling the producing capacity of the land. In this brief 

(13) 



14 Alfalfa^ "The Grass." 

summary this great historian has told of the value of 
alfalfa to agriculture wherever it has been grown. 

Recent investigations show that lucerne was 
brought to several Eastern states in this country from 
Europe and grown as early as 1800. But the people 
knew little about its merits and nature. Cattle and 
sheep easily bloated upon it and there was a prejudice 
against it on this account, and by many it was looked 
upon as too poisonous and dangerous for use upon the 
farm, and it was quickly crowded out by common 
clover. In addition, the rapid and continuous growth 
of Alfalfa made it too laborious and difficult to cut 
with the scythe. The modern implements used in 
farming have not only doubled but multiplied the 
production and possibilities of alfalfa, the grandest 
grass that the Bountiful Giver of all good has ever 
instituted for the farmer, to lighten the toils of the 
tiller of the soil and double the rewards of his patient 
and intelligent labor. 



Alfalfa in Ohio. 

(15) 




Alfalfa in Blossom. 



CHAPTER II. 
Alfalfa in Ohio. 

The earliest attempt to grow alfalfa in Ohio was 
by a farmer in Noble County in 1872. Seed had been 
sent him from California, with directions for sowing, 
but climate and soil conditions were so different that 
he failed, and, not knowing its value, he gave up the 
attempt in disgust. 

The Wing Brothers, of Champaign County, having 
learned the value of alfalfa in the West, began grow- 
ing alfalfa in that county in 1887, and have had uni- 
form success since, and have increased their acreage 
yearly until they became the largest growers of alfalfa 
in the state. In 1890 Hon. Lowell Roudebusch, of 
Clermont County, who had been living at various 
places in the West, and learned of the great value of 
alfalfa as a farm product, returned to Ohio and in- 
duced several to plant alfalfa in the rolling land 
around Camp Dennison. The efifort was a success, and 
it has been grown there ever since, and has done v/ell in 
that section of the state. In 1894 Dr. Becket, who lives 
on the limestone divide in Franklin County, between 
the Scioto and Olentangy rivers, made a visit to Cali- 
fornia, and brought back ten pounds of alfalfa seed, 
which he sowed in an old orchard. He got a stand, 
and used it for years as a hog pasture. It seeded, and 
2 (17) 



18 Alfalfa, "The Grass." 

the wind blew the seed far to the northeast, and you 
can find alfalfa in with the sweet clover in the hard 
gravel along the roadsides and the fences. 

But alfalfa did not begin to attract the general atten- 
tion of Ohio farmers until 1900. Many began to learn 
that it would be a valuable asset upon every farm, 
but the general impression was that it could only be 
grown upon rich bottom lands and under ideal con- 
ditions. This view was encouraged by the govern- 
ment authorities, in all of their bulletins relating to 
alfalfa. 

In 1902 Director Chas. E. Thorne, of the Ohio 
Experiment Station, said, "the results of experiments 
with alfalfa at this station have been chiefly negative" ; 
and Mr. J. E. Wing, who has been quoted as the only 
authority in Ohio on alfalfa, wrote, "Alfalfa does not 
seem to be adapted to poor soils in Ohio." These 
official statements discouraged and squelched the bud- 
ding desire to attempt to grow alfalfa. But interest in 
the possibilities of alfalfa continued to grow, and, 
refusing to be daunted by official prohibition and 
"scientific intimidation." Farmers in all sections 01" 
Ohio began growing alfalfa on all kinds of soil with 
the most astonishing and most gratifying success. 
Their efforts were encouraged by such farm papers 
as the Weekly Enquirer, which has persisted, for five 
years, in presenting in each issue all the data and in- 
formation that could be gathered to help those farmers 
who wished to grow alfalfa. 

In 1903 Mr. Jos. E. Wing modestly wrote: 



Alfalfa, "The Grass. 



19 



"Perhaps we have on our farm half of the alfalfa in 
the state." If Mr. Wing had loo acres in alfalfa on 
"rich black land," on which he said it could only be 
grown, there was only 200 acres of alfalfa in Ohio. 
There is more than that now. Two years ago Mr. 
John M. Jamison, of Ross County, a successful grower 
of alfalfa on hill land, and the writer induced the Sec- 
retary of the State Board of Agriculture to include 
"alfalfa" in the crop statistics returned under oath 
by the assessors. The returns for 1905 were made 
by the assessors in May, 1906, and the statistics pub- 
lished by the Board from these returns in August 
1906 and 1907 show that alfalfa is grown in the fol- 
lowing counties. The table, giving statistics for two 
3'ears, are valuable, and show the rapid increase in 
acreage, and the growing success in raising alfalfa : 

Alfalfa in Ohio. 

Table Showing the Acreage and Yield by CouNriEs for 
THE Years 1905 and 1906. 



Counties. 


1905. 


1906. 


Acres. 


Tons. 


Acres. 


Tons. 


Adams 

Allen 


15 
54 


19 
127 


8 

65 

3 

1 

3.3-2 

135 

49 


41 
102 


Ashland 


6 


Ashtabula 


1 
357 

77 
35 


5 

977 

169 

71 


4 


Athens 


901 


Auglaize 


261 


Belmont 


79 



20 



Alfalfa, "The Grass.** 
Alfalfa in Ohio — Continued. 



Counties. 


1905. 


1906. 


Acres. 


Tons. 


Acres. 


Tons. 


Brown 


56 
200 


71 

588 


36 

416 

4 

1,095 

315 

564 

145 

•) 

62 

7 

1 

158 

25 

234 

120 

27 

425 

387 

63 

51 

2 

234 

43 

1,244 

22 

94 

23 

8 

135 

100 

4 

6 


68 


Butler 


1,032 


Carroll 




Champaign 


1,053 
226 
504 
201 

1 
31 

7 


2,559 
495 
931 
543 

1 

104 

13 


2,755 


Clark 


720 


Clermont 


1,116 


Clinton 


445 


Columbiana 




Coshocton 


231 


Crawford 


18 


Cuyahoga 




Darke 


65 
18 

226 
90 
19 

355 

313 

29 

46 

1 

159 
40 

965 
9 

107 

19 

8 

139 

114 


136 

52 

502 

218 

53 

922 

793 

111 

84 

2 

331 

83 

2,240 

7 

287 

186 

17 

313 

319 


250 


Defiance 


69 


Delaware 


525 


Erie 


308 


Fairfield 


96 


Fayette 


1,341 


Franklin 


1,001 


Fulton 


171 


Gallia 


107 




2 


Greene 


446 


Guernsey 


89 




3,175 


Hancock 


22 


Hardin 


253 


Harrison 


63 


Henry 


21 


Highland 


370 




370 




10 


Huron 


3 

6 

10 


13 
6 

20 


19 






Jefiferson 


17 


33 






Lake 


37 


39 


32 


29 



Alfalfa, "The Grass." 
Alfalfa in Ohio — Continued. 



21 



Counties. 



1905. 



Acres. 



Tons. 



1906. 



Acres. 



Tons. 



Lawrence . . . 

Licking 

Logan 

Lorain 

Lucas 

Madison . . . . 
Mahoning . . 

Marion 

Medina 

Meigs 

Mercer 

Miami 

Monroe 

Montgomery 

Morgan 

Morrow . . . . 
Muskingum . 

Noble 

Ottawa 

Paulding . . . 

Perry 

Pickawav . . . 
Pike ...'..... 
Portage . . . . 

Preble 

Putnam . . . . 
Richland . . . 

Ross 

Sandusky . . . 

Scioto 

Seneca 

Shelby 

Stark 

Summit . . . . 
Trumbull . . . 
Tuscarawas . 



1 
138 
813 
15 
197 
54-2 
1 

7 
32 
60 
69 



346 
62 
30 
16 
94 

115 



43 
60 



278 
19 



491 
35 

19 

98 

5 

892 

27 
..... 



3 

336 

1,976 

49 

706 
919 



18 

61 

204 

162 



981 
214 

77 

37 

154 

276 



78 
101 



436 

39 



1.075 

65 

82 

261 

13 

1,149 

4 



4 

185 

1,209 

11 

318 

525 



28 

7 

27 

58 

114 

3 

377 

90 

29 

71 

32 

237 

22 

8 

26 

10 

I 

330 

9 

7 

500 

39 

57 

103 

74 

769 

12 

1 

9 



10 

536 

2,568 

16 

821 

1,148 



64 

22 

59 

186 

253 

5 

798 

309 

98 

156 

67 

629 

37 

12 

44 



679 

22 

25 

,250 

142 

105 

287 

121 

951 

3 

5 

32 



22 



Alfalfa, "The Grass." 
Alfalfa in Ohio — Concluded. 



Counties. 


1905. 


1906. 


Acres. 


Tons. 


Acres. 


Tons. 


pillion 


163 
19 


42-2 
57 


172 

10 


438 


Van Wert 


32 


Vinton 




Warren 


■236 
69 
14 
97 

117 


716 
175 
43 
265 
275 


334 
69 

7 

121 

254 

59 


827 


W^ashin^'ton 


302 


W^aj'ne 


24 


Williams 


396 


Wood 


485 


Wvandot 


119 










Totak 


10,832 


24,890 


13.025 


29,612 







There were 10,832 acres of alfalfa in Ohio in 1905, 
producing 24,890 tons of hay. Seventy-six of the 
eighty-eight counties are growing alfalfa. Twelve 
counties — Ashland, Carroll, Cuyahoga, Holmes, Knox, 
Monroe, Paulding, Portage, Richland, Trumbull, Vin- 
ton and Wyandot — make no returns, although one of 
the most successful alfalfa farmers in the state lives 
in Knox county. These statistics show that alfalfa 
is being successfully grown in all kinds of soil and 
under all conditions in Ohio. 

In 1891 there was the same doubts, skepticism and 
uncertainties about alfalfa in Kansas that there is in 
Ohio, but there were 34,384 acres in alfalfa in Kansas 
that year. In 1902 there were 777,635 acres, and last 
year, 1906, there were 1,273,000 acres of alfalfa re- 



Alfalfa, "The Grass." 23 

turned in Kansas, and one county, Jewell, returned 
38,750 acres. It must be a marvelous grass to spread 
so rapidly. The days of timofhy and red clover as 
leading grass crops are numbered in Kansas, and this 
fact is a promise that alfalfa will soon spread over 
Ohio, and its purple blossoms will perfume the air 
from lake to river, and its rich nutriments will multiply 
the live stock, double the profits of agriculture, in- 
crease the value of land and lessen the labors of the 
husbandman. 

A comparison of the figures for 1905 and 1906 in 
the table shows the rapid increase in acreage in Ohio. 
It has started, and, like clover, will spread as rapidjy 
;uid as widely. 



Alfalfa in Ohio. -= Description of tlie 
Plant. -- Seeds of Various Kinds. 



:25) 



CHAPTER III. 

Alfalfa in Ohio — Description of the Plant — 
Seeds of Various Kinds. 

The botanical name of alfalfa is Medicago Sativa. 
It is a legume and belongs to the family of the clovers, 
pease, beans and vetches. This class of plants are 
of great value to the farm, because of their capacity 
to gather nitrogen from the air, and other plant food 
from the earth, and restore the fertility of the soil, and 
in this gracious provision of the All Wise Agricultur- 
ist of the Universe, alfalfa heads the list and surpasses 
all other kinds of grasses — when the stand is not too 
thick. 

In Ohio alfalfa attains a heighth of 48 inches at 
its first cutting in June, and thereafter it may be cut 
for hay in July, August and September, averaging for 
the four cuttings 48, 42, 38 and 24 inches, making an 
average of over 12 feet of grass each year. 

It is a perennial, with long, slender stems, on which 
clusters of leaves form, from the base to the top, when 
not too thickly planted. The leaves form three in a 
group, something like red clover, but are longer and 
more pointed. When approaching maturity the stems 
become woody and send up slender spike, upon which 
the beautiful purple blossoms appear in clusters. The 
flower is very fragrant, and the bees revel in its sweets, 

(27) 



28 Alfalfa, "The Grass." 

The seed pods form in spirals which curve like a snail's 
shell, and each pod contains from six to ten seeds. 
Under a strong glass the seeds look like a bean or a 
hog's kidney, and are as large again as clover seeds. 
They are a light yellow in color, when not weather 
stained. When the pods ripen they turn brown, and 
are ready to harvest. The leaves fall off, leaving the 
stem almost bare, with the seed pods on the stems. 

There are several kinds of legumes that have some 
resemblance to alfalfa, but can not compare with it in 
feeding value or in production in Ohio. One is known 
as "Medicago Media," or intermediate lucerne, and 
another is the yellow or sand lucerne, "Medicago 
Falcato. They have no value for this state, and no 
attempt has been made to grow them in Ohio, know- 
ingly. 

Teher is another variety known as Turkestan, 
which farmers are warned against, as many have been 
deceived by buying Turkestan for alfalfa seed. It 
only grows about i8 inches high, and farmers who 
have planted it are greatly disappointed at its charac- 
ter and yield, because it failed to do all that it is known 
the genuine alfalfa will do. At a farmers' institute 
held at Wapakoneta, Ohio, two farmers said that their 
alfalfa grew only about i8 inches high. At the second 
day's meeting they brought in some of the seed, and 
it proved to be Turkestan instead of alfalfa. It liad 
been sold to them for alfalfa seed, and they lost their 
money, time and the use of their land. There is such 
a demand for alfalfa seed and it has such a ready sale 



Alfalfa, "The Grass." ^9 

and commands such a high price that unscrupulous 
dealers, with that criminal and brazen audacity that 
is one of the alarming characteristics of this greedy 
commercial age, palm off this bastard product as gen- 
uine alfalfa seed. Unfortunately we have no clean 
seed laws in Ohio to protect farmers as they have in 
Kentucky and other states. But the farmers need 
such a law, and need it quick, and it should be vigor- 
ously enforced, until an end is put to this kind of fake 
imposition. 

In 1898 the United States Agricultural Department 
sent an agent to Russia to secure a foreign forage 
plant that would resist drought and freezing, and in 
Asia, from arid Turkistan to frozen Siberia, he found 
this plant flourishing. Seed was sent to the United 
States, and it was introduced in the arid regions of 
the West and the colder regions of the North. Here 
it has done fairly well, and men are raising it for seed 
which is being sold to innocent purchasers as alfalfa. 
The seed is smaller than alfalfa and larger than clover, 
and of a reddish yellow color, but no one but an expert 
can detect it, even with a magnifying glass. The 
Kansas Experiment Station says : "Turkestan has been 
tried here for several years, and it makes a weaker 
growth than alfalfa, is less able to withstand drought, 
winter killing and weeds, and yields less. Kansas 
farmers have no use for it." When you buy alfalfa 
seed be on your guard against having Turkestan seed 
palmed off upon you. The dealer knows the difference 
and should be held responsible. I write this plainly 



30 Alfalfa, "The Grass." 

and bluntly because seedmen are practicing this fraud 
intentionally. Only recently a seed dealer said to me: 
"I can't get any alfalfa seed, but I can get plenty of 
Turkestan. How would it do to sell that to llie 
suckers?" I told him "It would be an infernal out- 
rage." I made it stronger than that, but I guess that 
this language is strong enough for history and domes- 
tic consumption. 



From City to Country. 

(31) 



CHAPTER IV. 

From City to Country. 

I was born in a town, and once worked with an odd 
genius, a journeyman tailor, named Martin O'Connor, 
who was born in Ireland, but said that he could have 
been born in the United States, if he had said so. If 
I had had this wonderful power I would have been 
born in the country, and having been so born, my wish 
would be the sentiment expressed in that masterpiece, 
Gray's Elegy: 

"Far from the maddening crowd's ignoble strife 
His sober wishes never learned to stray 

Although cool, sequested vale of life 

He kept the noiseless tenor of his way." 

For forty years I lived in cities and spent an active 
life, as a newspaper writer as my chosen means of 
making a livelihood. As a political writer I was 
thrown into contact with public men and politicians. 
It was a hard, consuming life, and I yearned for the 
country and the fields. For a long time I had a half- 
formed purpose to move to the country, and as my 
children and family grew in number and years I re- 
solved to move onto a farm for their good as well as 
my own. But as the years rolled on I could never 
persuade myself to make the change. In 1898, tired 

3 (33) 



34 Alfalfa^ "The Grass." 

mentally and worn out physically, some guiding spirit 
quickened my resolution, and I made up my mind 
that the way to move onto a farm was to move, and 
in the spring of 1898 I rented a small place of 32 
acres and burned my city idols and bridges behind me 
and moved onto the land. I have more than realized 
my expectation. I have spent nine of the hap- 
piest years of my life. I found fresh air, pure water, 
green fields, singing birds, growing crops, poultry, 
regained my health by hard work, can eat, sleep and 
enjoy life like a sound man, and with Shakespeare I 
can say: 

"And this, our life, exempt from public haunt 
Finds tongues in trees, books in running brooks 
Sermons in stones and good in everything." 

I pity those dwellers in the cities who know not 
what it is to 

"Go forth under the open sky and list 
To nature's teachings." 



A Description of the Land. 

(35) 




o 



> 



CHAPTER V. 
A Description of the Land. 

For the purpose of encouraging the growth of 
alfalfa in Ohio, it is necessary to give a description 
of the land and the farm upon which I have toiled 
and made a living for nine years. I do this because 
there are some "scientific farmers," who never saw 
the land, who know more about it than I do, and who 
persist in giving the soil a character it does not pos- 
sess. There is no man, however wise and learned, 
who can sit in revolving chairs and draw a salary, who 
can tell every farmer what every foot of his farm is 
best adapted to produce. The farmer alone is best 
qualified and adopted by constant experience and con- 
tact with the soil to do this. 

This farm is located eight miles north of Colum- 
bus, on the old Delaware pike. It is in Sharon town- 
ship, and a mile east of the Olentangy river. The 
land is clay, rough and rolling, broken by the gullies 
which three little streams have cut in the soil. When 
I moved onto it. it had been farmed to death. All the 
fertility in the soil had been exhausted by frequent 
croppings and hauled away and sold in the nearest 
market. The year before I moved upon it all that 
twelve acres of oats produced was hauled off in one 
wagonload, I was told by the man who harvested the 

(37) 



38 Alfalfa, "The Grass." 

crop. There was two acres of bottom land along one 
of the creeks, composed of loam three feet thick, 
underlaid by a bed of sand and gravel. This is an 
excellent corn land, and with manure and turning 
clover under last year produced lOo bushels of corn 
to the acre — the rest of the land with the same treat- 
ment will average 25 bushels of corn to the acre. The 
land is heavy, tough yellow clay, and in some places it 
has only four inches of soil, on a very stubborn hard- 
pan. On all the high rolling places there is an out- 
cropping of gravel, on which no crop that I have ever 
grown or tried to grow ever returned seed or paid for 
the labor until I planted it in alfalfa. 

In short, most of the ground was as poorly adapted 
to farming purposes as any land in Ohio, and yet I 
am told officially and scientifically that I live on the 
bottoms of the Olentangy river ; that the land is "lime- 
stone" soil, and that is "ideal" for raising alfalfa. 
There is lime in the clay, as there is in all clays, but 
there is no limestone in, under or near the soil, be- 
cause it was ground out by the ice and carried south 
by the waters, ages ago, to make the Pickaway plains 
and the rich bottom lands in the Scioto valley. If this 
is "ideal land" for raising alfalfa, then there are hun- 
dreds of thousands of acres of "ideal land" in Ohio, 
that will not raise enough of any crop to pay for the 
seed and tillage that will raise splendid crops of 
alfalfa, and by so doing can be made to pay for them- 
selves in four years, and double the value of every 
acre for stock and grazing purposes. 



Alfalfa, "The Grass/' 39 

The certainty of growing alfalfa successfully upon 
the hillsides and hill tops in clay and sandy soils is 
the message that I wish to convey to every farmer in 
Ohio. 

For several years the Bureau of Soils of the United 
States Agricultural Department has been making a 
soil survey of the territory in which I live. The work 
was completed, and a report made in 1906. This 
work is entitled the "Soil Survey of the Westerville 
Area." The territory in this area composes 475 
square miles. It lies in the counties of Franklin, 
Delaware, Licking, Union and Madison, between the 
82 and 84 degrees west longitude and 40 and 41 de- 
grees north latitude, and is the geographical center of 
the state. This land is drained by the Scioto and 
Olentangy rivers and Alum and Walnut creeks. These 
streams flow southeast about five miles apart. The 
slope is 100 feet to the mile, and the valley ranges in 
depth from 100 to 200 feet. There are numerous 
small lateral streams that drain into the ones named, 
cutting the land into abrupt valleys. In many places 
the land is too steep to plow. The report says : 

"Physiography and Geology." 

"The Westerville area consists of a comparatively 
level plain having a slight fall to the south. The max- 
imum elevation of 1,140 feet above sea level is reached 
in the southeast corner of Delaware County, on the 
eastern edge of the map, while the least elevation is 



40 Alfalfa, "The Grass.'* 

found 17 miles southeast. The formation, with the 
possible exception of a very narrow strip on the east 
bank of the Scioto, has been covered with glacial 
material, and the prevailing type of soil, the Miami 
clay loam, shows no recognizable difference in char- 
acter from that covering the central and eastern parts 
of the area surveyed. The rock is not exposed except 
along the Scioto river, where it is quite extensively 
quarried for building purposes. 

"The Huron shales, the next highest in the geo- 
logical scale, cover the greater portion of the area, 
extending in a broad belt from north to south. These 
blue shales constitute much of the most easily eroded 
rocks of the area, and the cutting of the streams has 
resulted in producing a rougher, more underlating 
topography, especially near the edge of the escarp- 
ment, where the short lateral watercourses join the 
main stream. 

"The rocks of the Waverly group are confined to 
the eastern and northeastern parts of the area. They 
consist of shales and a fine sandstone, in the latter 
of which a quarry has been opened at Sunbury. These 
rocks, like those of the underlying Huron shales, are 
covered with a blanket of glacial drift and enter into 
composition of the soils only as far as their residual 
material lias been mixed and ground up and left in 
an altered state by the passage of the glaciers. The 
Miami clay loam is here, as elsewhere, the principal 
type." 



Alfalfa, "The Grass." 41 

Soils. 

The soil conditions of the Westerville area are 

quite uniform, and the only four distinct types have 
been recognized. 

The following table gives the relative and actual 
extent of each of the types : 

Areas of Different Soils. 

Soil. Acres. Per cent. 

Miami clay loam 267 , 264 87 . 8 

Miami loam 17,856 5.9 

Miami black clay loam 16 , 128 5.3 

Miami gravelly loam 3,136 1.0 



Total 304,384 

Miami Clay Loam. 

The soil of the Miami clay loam, to an average 
depth of ID inches, possesses a fine uniform silty tex- 
ture, exhibiting little variation in the most widely 
separated parts of the area. Though the soil contains 
a relative high percentage of clay, the particles are 
so masked by the silt that the clayey characteristics 
of a sample as a whole are not noticeable when in a 
normal state of moisture. There are sometimes present 
a few granules of shale or limestone of the size of 
coarse sand or fine gravel, giving to the mass a very 
slightly gritty feel. These can oftentimes be broken 
down between the thumb and finger. Very little stone 
occurs in the soil or subsoil of this type, except along 



42 Alfalfa, "The Grass." 

the escarpments bordering nearly ail the streams and 
bottom lands. In these situations the glacial gravel is 
exposed, and a band of from 2 to lo rods wide of 
more or less gravelly soil results. Where this is of 
sufficient width to indicate on the map, it appears 
as Miami gravelly loam. The surface color varies 
from a light yellowish brown in locations where nat- 
ural drainage is best, to a dark brown in areas of 
slight depression and at the line of contact with Miami 
black clay loam. The texture of the soil in the latter 
instances is somewhat heavier, the subsoil remaining 
about the same. 

"The subsoil is a compact silty clay, slightly mottled 
with dark brown or bluish clay in some instances, but 
the color is usually a uniform brownish yellow. The 
subsoil becomes gradually heavier with increasing 
depth, and a few chips of shale or limestone are some- 
times found. Except along the streams, there is but 
little stone or gravel in the subsoil, until the glacial till 
or bowlder clay is reached at a depth of from 3 to 6 
feet. 

"Miami clay loam is the predominating type in 
point of distribution, and is found in all parts of the 
area surveyed, forming 87.7 per cent of the entire 
area of the sheet. The topography varies somewhat. 
Along the principal streams there is often an abrupt 
fall of from 20 to 50 feet from the uplands down to 
the bottoms, the escarpment line being more or less 
dissected by small lateral streams. Upon the upland, 
from two to five miles back from the main streams, 



Alfalfa, "The Grass/' 43 

the surface is slightly undulating. The natural drain- 
age in the latter situation is usually deficient, and to 
improve this condition a great many miles of open 
ditches and tile drains have been put in. Even those 
portion of a type where a fairly undulating surface 
prevails requires a more thorough drainage than they 
generally get. 

"The Miami clay loam is derived from a combina- 
tion of the residual material, caused by the weather- 
ing of the underlying rock, and the various assort- 
ment of materials subsequently brought down and 
distributed by the glaciers. In this work the glaciers 
are assisted by considerable volume of water from the 
melting ice. 

"Most of this area is common yellozv clay ivithout 
any traces of limestone, and as such is found in all 
the counties of southern Ohio, and in every other 
county of the state.' The term "clay loam" is confus- 
ing, as clay is the basis of all loams. The Century 
Dictionary says : "Clay is the material resulting from 
the decomposition and consequent hydration of crystal- 
character of rocks is the foundation of all clay soils, 
and not limestone. I give these statements from reli- 
able authorities, to refute the persistent misstatement 
and insistent misinformation that alfalfa will only 
grow on "rich bottom lands or limestone soils." It 
will grow better, produce stronger and last longer on 
rolling clay soils with quick surface drainage than on 
bottom lands and rich black soils, and as well as on 
limestone soils. The report says that upon a portion 



44 Alfalfa, "The Grass." 

of this area the Miami gravelly loam, which is second 
bottom, alfalfa should do well. Much of this area 
contains a heavy blue clay subsoil, which the report 
says nothing about, and which the scientific gentlemen 
who are engaged in making the survey knew nothing 
about and never discovered. In some sections this 
blue clay is 20 feet under the ground, and in others 
in the northern part of Franklin County the blue clay 
is near the surface. This blue clay holds water like 
a cistern, and imless tiles are placed very thick drain- 
age does little good, as the crops drown out in a wet 
season and burn out in a dry season, because the blue 
clay will not let the water down or the moisture come 
up. Alfalfa has been tried upon this kind of soil 
that is underlaid by blue clay, and has always failed. 
The roots of alfalfa will penetrate the hardest sub- 
soil, but seem to sicken as soon as they strike the blue 
clay, and the plant dies or heaves out when the ground 
freezes. This is the only kind of soil in Ohio that I 
know of upon which alfalfa will not grow, except on 
swampy land. I do not believe that it will grow upon 
this soil even with the most thorough tile drainage, but 
experience and further trials when the plant becomes 
acclimatized may prove that I am wrong in this. 



"How I Came to Grow Alfalfa." 

(45) 




Harvesting Alfalfa. 




Rakinc; Alfalfa After Dinner. 



CHAPTER VI. 

"How I Came to Grow Alfalfa." 

After I moved on the farm the Spanish war began, 
and I tried growing garden truck, but failed on every- 
thing but beans. I put 20 acres in New York marrow- 
fat beans, and sold them green and dried and did 
very well. The second year I planted 25 acres in 
beans and did well, making about $40 an acre. The 
third year I tried beans again, putting the crop in 
July 3rd, and on the 5th a cloudburst flooded the bean 
fields until they looked like a frog pond, and when 
the hot sun came out and the water dried up the clay 
ground baked down hard like a brick yard, and the 
beans all broke their backs getting through the crust 
and the crop was an absolute failure. It was too late 
to plant another crop, and the land was so poor that 
it would take years of patient and intelligent toil to 
restore the fertility of the soil so that I could rotate 
any crops. It did not belong to me, and when I came 
to the country I did not know whether I would like 
it or not, nor whether I could succeed and how long 
I would stay. I did not have much money saved, and 
I did not wish to invest in an occupation if I was 
going to fail and lose all I had. But I got a t^te 
and liked it, and I made up my mind never to live 
in a city again, but end my days in the country and 

(47) 



48 Alfalfa, "The Grass." 

on a farm; and I determined to try and make a suc- 
cessful farmer. 

In the fall of 1900 I went to Kansas, where I spent 
four weeks traveling all over the state from the Mis- 
souri border to the Colorado line and from Nebraska 
to Indian Territory. In all sections and on all kinds 
of soils everyone that I talked to sang the praises of 
alfalfa, as a blessing to the farmer and a salvation 
to the state of Kansas. The testimony was so unan- 
imous and so universal as to the riches and possibil- 
ities of this grand, glorious and gracious grass that 
I ate alfalfa, dreamed alfalfa, thought alfalfa and 
hiked back to Ohio to grow alfalfa. Kansas is a grand 
state, but I saw no possibilities there that could tempt 
me to sever my relations with my people and my 
native state. Ohio was heaven on earth for me, and 
the more that I travel and the more that I see of 
other states and other people the keener grows my 
affection and the greater my love for Ohio and her 
people, her traditions and her institutions. In Ohio 
I will tarry while I live, and when I die if I don't 
find a better country and a more congenial people I 
am coming back to Ohio to act as guardian angel of 
the alfalfa fields. 

My First Attempts to Grow Alfalfa. 

I returned from Kansas in November, 1900. It 
was too late to plant alfalfa, but I began studying 
the question and gathering information. The printed 
matter published by the Ohio Experiment Station was 



Alfalfa^ "The Grass/' 49 

very limited, and conveyed the discouraging ofificial 
information that alfalfa could only be grown in Ohio 
on rich bottom land. There was no rich bottom land 
on my place. It was rolling, gravelly clay and worn- 
out clay land, that had been cropped into sterility. I 
sent to the Kansas Experiment Station and got the 
Bulletins on the growth of alfalfa in that state. These 
said that alfalfa would do well on clay soils, and all 
other soils except wet and swampy land, and that it 
ought to be grown on land at least 15 feet from the 
water table to secure a permanent stand and secure 
best results. This was more encouraging. But there 
was a difference between growing alfalfa in eastern 
Kansas and the arid regions of the West. Different 
methods had to be pursued in seeding and time of 
planting. But I had an object lesson right across 
the road from my place that convinced me that alfalfa 
would grow on clay groitnd and do well. 

A farmer named Milo Hines had a son in Idaho 
who had sent him 30 pounds of alfalfa seed. He had 
a piece of clay ground of three acres, located on a 
hillside sloping to the south. It was clay, full of stones 
and could not be plowed without washing badly. In 
1895 '1^ planted it without using manure or fertilizer, 
lime or inoculation. He went about it in a common- 
sense way and prepared the ground as he would for 
any grass seed and sowed it broadcast and got a stand, 
which has lasted for 10 years and has produced for 
each year an average of four tons to the acre, on 

4 



60 Alfalfa, "The Grass." 

ground that was too poor to raise any kind of a grain 
crop. Last year a tenant turned his hogs in on it for 
pasture and they thrived amazingly, but he kept them 
on it too late in the fall and left no cover crop, and 
last winter, 1907, it froze out and the field was plowed 
up this spring and planted in corn, and it is one of 
the finest stands in the neighborhood. As long as care 
was taken of the field its vigor and yield never dimin- 
ished. 

After digesting all the information that I could 
get and profiting by the experience and success of 
Mr. Hines I made up my mind how to plant and 
when. I picked out three pieces of ground, which we 
will number i, 2 and 3. There was half an acre in 
each piece. No. i was a clay gravel hill 25 feet above 
the level of the water at its highest point. The clay 
was tough and full of stones and hard to plow. I 
had never been able to raise anything on this piece 
of ground. It sloped towards the south and east, 
and when plowed it washed badly and packed hard. 
Poor as the land is on the farm, the three pieces 
selected were the worst and most unpromising on the 
place. No. 2 was a clay hill with a gravel outcropping 
that washed badly. It was on the opposite side of the 
brook, and not quite as high as the other, but was 
at least 20 feet to the water level. It sloped towards 
the west. No. 3 was near the barn, and I wished to 
use it for a poultry yard. It was heavy yellow clay 
with a southern exposure. All three pieces were 



Alfalfa, "The Grass/' 61 

plowed in April and harrowed. No. i was seeded 
with five pounds of alfalfa seed sown broadcast and 
not covered. I saw that the seed was small, and if I 
covered it and the rain came a crust would form on 
the clay surface and the seed leaf could not penetrate 
the surface. My experience with the beans taught 
me this lesson. In a few days the seed sprouted after 
a rain, and the roots went down and the plants 
flourished and made rapid growth. No. 2 was planted 
a day later. The seed was sown broadcast and har- 
rowed in, a crust formed and the field was the worst 
of the three, as over half of the plants could not get 
through the crust, and this piece never did as well 
as the others. No. 3 was seeded to oats. The oats 
were harrowed in, and then the alfalfa seed was sown 
broadcast and not covered. The alfalfa started before 
the oats and grew rapidly. In two weeks the alfalfa 
on all three pieces was four inches high. These tests 
satisfied me that alfalfa would grow on any land on 
the farm, without manure, fertilizer, inoculation or 
lime, and I determined to plant the bean field. A disk 
harrow was used on 10 acres, and it was then har- 
rowed crossways with a spike tooth harrow. A drill 
was used on May 15 to seed four pecks of oats to 
the acre, and set to sow 10 pounds of alfalfa seed 
to the acre. The grass seed sprouts were turned back 
of the hoes so that the alfalfa seed would fall on loose 
ground and not be covered. I got a fair stand of oats 
for the amount sown, and the alfalfa did well, but I 



52 Alfalfa, "The Grass." 

made the mistake of letting the oats ripen instead of 
cutting for hay when in bloom. The drain on the 
soil in ripening the oats killed off some of the alfalfa, 
and wherever the oats were heavy the alfalfa was 
shaded and killed out. The oats were cut in July, and 
the top of the alfalfa was cut and bound in the oats. 
When the oats were removed the alfalfa flourished 
and soon covered the field. The alfalfa was not 
clipped, but the growth of 15 inches was left as a 
cover and the alfalfa came through the winter in 
splendid shape. After threshing the oats the straw 
with the alfalfa in it was eaten ravenously by the 
Jersey cattle and made splendid feed. 

In addition to the bean field, another piece of 
two acres was plowed and sown to alfalfa without 
any cover crop. But a heavy rain packed the clay 
ground and there was only about half a stand. 

This was in 1901. In 1902 three crops of alfalfa 
were cut averaging five tons to the acre. In 1903 
and 1904 three crops were cut each year. 

In 1905 four crops were cut, measuring 12 feet 3 
inches in the four cuttings, and in 1906 four crops 
were cut, measuring 12 feet 6 inches of grass, and 
one part of the field, the highest point, yielded 10 
tons of alfalfa to the acre, while the average ran from 
two tons an acre the first cutting in 1905 and 1906 
to one ton an acre the other three cuttings. Crops 
were cut in Jime, July and August and September. 
The one acre last year paid $120.00. The third 



Alfalfa, "The Grass." 63 

cutting, in August, was sold to Mr. Harry Olmstead, 
in Columbus, for $14 a ton out of the field. There 
was 4,500 pounds, for which $31.50 was paid. All 
the alfalfa I could spare was sold in Columbus as 
soon as it was baled for $20.00 a ton. 



The Land That Will Grow Alfalfa in 
Ohio. 

(55) 




Ph 



< 



CHAPTER VII. 
The Land That Will Grow Alfalfa in Ohio. 

Having secured a stand of alfalfa the first year on 
five dififerent pieces of land in three different ways, 
as long as it was doing well nothing was done to it. 
All it needed was to be let alone. It was onto its job 
and was abundantly able to take care of itself, and 
it did. 

This looked too easy. Many visited the stands, 
asked many questions, and when I told them how 
simple it was they shook their heads in doubt. About 
June I, 1900, I found Mr. John Stoddart, a lawyer 
of Columbvis, who owns a fine farm of 200 acres ad- 
joining mine, on the place looking at the alfalfa 
fields Nos. I and 2. The grass was then 12 inches 
high. He asked how deep the roots were. We dug 
up a plant on No. 2. The root was 18 inches long, and 
had grown in six weeks and penetrated a hard clay 
gravel pan. Mr. Stoddart said: "This is marvelous; 
all the authorities say that it will only grow on rich 
bottom land or black soil." "Yes ; I know what they 
say, and I have been guilty of treason, but there it 
is growing on poor clay land." 

He planted five acres the next spring, and it is 
one of the finest pieces of alfalfa to be found any- 
where. This spring he put in 12 acres more. When 

(57) 



68 Alfalfa, "The Grass." 

I planted alfalfa in 1901 there were only three fields 
of alfalfa in the neighborhood; now there are 40. 
After three years the alfalfa was in its prime and 
had passed through all the stages that would render 
the experiment doubtful. From my own success I 
felt that alfalfa would grow and prove a profitable 
crop on all kinds of soil except wet lands, but I did 
not want to assert this without further tests. 

In 1904 I induced Col. C. B. Adams, of the Boys' 
Industrial School, in Fairfield County, to plant five 
acres on a sandy hillside with a southern exposure. 
The field is at an angle of fully 30 degrees, and the 
soil is made up of decomposed old red sandstone. 
There is no limestone in or near that soil. It grew 
islowly, and the first year looked like a failure. No 
attention was paid to it. The second year they were 
surprised when the alfalfa came up strong, and last 
year, on May 22, the alfalfa was 42 inches high, 
and I pulled up one plant that had 53 shoots on it. 

Other fields have been planted on the hilltop and 
in the valley in clay ground, and while two have been 
failures on account of the wet season and too much 
fertilizer and manure, a fourth has done well. 

After these successful experiments I began to 
preach the gospel of alfalfa with confidence, because 
I saw it meant the redemption of hundreds of thou- 
sands of acres of land in the hill counties that are 
now almost worthless for agricultural and grazing 
purposes. The growth of alfalfa in southern Ohio 
means to mor? than double the value of the poor WU 



Alfalfa, 'The Grass/' 69 

farms that have been plowed and worked to death 
and washed away. It means that southern Ohio will 
be the greatest sheep country in the United States, 
and all kinds of stock will be doubled in numbers. 
With alfalfa, the soil will not only produce the food 
to sustain them, but prepare them for market in first- 
class shape at fully one-half the cost of present meth- 
ods and feeds. 

Having satisfied myself that alfalfa was adapted 
to all kinds of soils and was the best grass on earth 
to grow on poor, worn-out lands, producing most 
profitable crops, preventing hillsides from washing 
and restoring the fertility of the soil by its wonderful 
root system, I was intimidated on finding that the 
government officials sang but one song in chorus, and 
that was "that alfalfa must have rich loam, and a stand 
could only be secured by lime, inoculation, manure 
and fertilizer and sowing 30 pounds to the acre." 
In the face of all these authorities it was presumption 
for me to assert that alfalfa would grow on poor, 
waste, worn-out lands. 

But being convinced that I was right I began 
proclaiming the truth, amidst the doubts, sneers and 
assaults of all the agents of the fertilizer, seed and 
other trusts. It sometimes seemed to me as though 
every agency selected to advocate the cause of agricul- 
ture and aid the farmer was hypnotized and seduced by 
some subtle influence to work for corporation inter- 
ests and against the farmer. 

To show that I am not alone in the correct position 



60 Alfalfa, "The Grass." 

that I have taken on the growth of alfalfa, the opinions 
of practical men who have had some real experience 
in raising alfalfa are given : 

Hon. F. D. Coburn, Secretary of the Kansas State 
Board of Agriculture, says : 

"While experts have been declaiming that alfalfa 
will only grow in certain soals and in certain climates, 
it has been proven that it will grow in nearly all soils 
and climates. It produces with a rainfall of 14 inches 
in one place, and flourishes with 65 inches in another. 
It grows 8,000 feet above the sea level, and in Cali- 
fornia it produces nine crops a year, producing 10 
and 12 tons to the acre, below the sea level. It is 
being grown successfully in Vermont and Florida. 
New York has grown it for over 100 years in the 
clay and gravel. Nebraska grows it on the sand hills 
without plowing, as does Nevada on her sage-brush 
deserts. The worn-out cotton lands of Alabama and 
rich corn lands of Illinois and Missouri respond with 
profitable yields. While its accumulating nitrogen and 
the subsoiling it effects on making the land more val- 
uable and giving to the crop-worn lands the priceless 
elements of which they have been robbed by a con- 
sciousless husbandry." 

One by one the statements of so-called experts 
have been shown at fault. One says, 'Tt will grow 
wherever corn will grow" ; and from New York to 
Louisiana men will say that they are growing it where 
corn will not grow. Another declares "that it will 
not grow over a hardpan or gumbo subsoil." A New 



Alfalfa, "The Grass/' 61 

York man shows a good field of alfalfa with roots 
over 15 feet long that passed through six inches of 
hardpan, which had to be broken with a pick in fol- 
lowing the root. A Kansas farmer reports a fine 
stand and good yield on gumbo soil where corn was 
a failure. Another declares, "It must have a rich 
sandy loam," and forthwith from the deserts of 
Nevada, the sand hills of Nebraska and the thin, worn 
clay soils of the South come satisfactory reports of 
good yields. Such results are significant, indicating 
better returns than another crop brings from these 
varied soils and climates, and no farmer is justified 
in postponing the addition of alfalfa to his farm crops 
because of supposed hindrances of soil or climate." 

Prof. W. T. L. Talrafeno, of the Maryland Agri- 
cultural College, says : 

"The future of alfalfa in southern Maryland is 
bright, and with its general introduction will come 
a new era of prosperity. Live stock will take the 
place of tobacco farming. The fertilizing elements of 
the soil will be kept at home instead of being shipped 
abroad. Larger crops will be raised. The soil will be 
improved instead of impoverished, and worn-out farms 
will be restored to their original fertility." 

The editor of the Rural New Yorker, in writing 
about alfalfa in central New York around Syracuse 
says : 

"On farms I saw alfalfa growing on top of steep 
clay hills, which were useless for farming purposes 
unless loaded with manure, and now that alfalfa has 



62 Alfalfa, "The Grass." 

been started these hilltops have become the most 
profitable fields on the farm. At one place I saw a 
fair crop of alfalfa growing- on i8 inches of soil over 
a rocky ledge and thriving. I have been told that this 
is the condition nnder which alfalfa will not grow, 
and yet seen it giving more forage than any red clover 
we can grow. This forage plant brings feed and 
fertility to the farm. It is like having a feed store and 
fertilizing factory drop out of the skies upon the farm 
to get a field of alfalfa started. It would not be a 
very bright farmer who continued to grow wheat or 
some other grain that would bring him $25 an acre 
when a crop like alfalfa would guarantee him $60 an 
acre." 

Alfalfa will not do well on a northern hillside. It 
will grow on a southern, western or eastern exposure, 
but it will do best on a southern exposure. It will 
do well on a gravelly clay soil. It will not produce so 
heavily, but it will last longer and produce a richer 
feed on gravelly soil than any other, and on the clay 
land it will produce a crop in dry weather when the 
alfalfa will fail on the sandy soil. 

The higher the land from the water table the 
better the alfalfa will thrive. As a rule the roots will 
go down to rock or water, except on heavy clay soils, 
which hold moisture better than any other lands, and 
here the roots have a tendency to bunch, like red clover- 
In some cases where there is only six or eight inches 
of clay soil above a hardpan the main root will stop as 
though cut off with a knife and send lateral roots 



Alfalfa, "The Grass/' 63 

three or four feet long along the surface of the hard- 
pan when not sown too thick. If sown too heavily on 
this kind of soil a root mass will form, and the alfalfa 
the second year will sicken and die. Many alfalfa 
failures on clay and all kinds of lands have been caused 
by sowing too much seed. 



Preparing the Land for Alfalfa. 

(65) 




Kansas Alfalfa Seed, Showing Weed Seeds. 



CHAPTER VIII. 
Preparing the Land for Alfalfa. 

When I started to grow alfalfa the information on 
the habits of the plant was meager, unsatisfactory 
and contradictory. But upon one point all the authori- 
ties agreed — the plant was deep rooted and fed on plant 
food deeper down in the soil than the plow had ever 
gone, and it was heralded as a plant that would not 
only give me paying crops, but it would restore the 
fertility of the soil, open it up and make it porous 
and put life into the dead land. 

This was the plant that I was looking for. If it 
would do this I couldn't see the sense of using fertil- 
izers, lime, inoculation and manure. I knew all clay 
soils as a rule have lime enough, a id I believe in 
manure all the time on all soils, but I have no use for 
fertilizers. They do help increase the >ield if the right 
elements are used for the various crops, but they put 
no humus in the soil and only hasten the exhaustion of 
soil fertility as deep down as the plow goes. 

I figured that alfalfa did not need a deep seed bed, 
but a fine one. If I used manure I would induce a 
weed crop that could choke out the alfalfa. So I 
disked the bean field one way and harrowed it the 
other, and sowed a bushel of oats with lo pounds of 
seed to the acre. I got a stand of both, but I let 

(67) 



68 Alfalfa, "The Grass." 

the oats go too long and lost some alfalfa. Last yeai 
I sowed four acres in the corn on July 20 and got a 
splendid stand. The seed was sown broadcast and 
not covered, after the corn was laid with a Planet, 
Jr., cultivator. 

Alfalfa never ought to be sown on a field that has 
been freshly manured. Raise some cultivated crop 
such as corn or potatoes, and kill off the weeds by 
cultivation, and sow in the corn or after early potatoes, 
or sow after the oats or wheat, but don't plow the 
ground. That means a fresh weed crop. Disk and 
harrow to kill off the weeds and prepare a fine seed 
bed and sow the seed without covering. In sandy 
soil or rich black loam it may do to cover very lightly, 
but on heavy clay soils it is fatal to cover the seed. 
If a rain comes a crust will form and the delicate seed 
leaf cannot get through and the little plant perishes; 
but if sown without covering on all kinds of soils 
before a rain the root will go down and the seed 
leaf forms on top of the ground and does not have to 
struggle to get to air and sunlight. If sown on top of 
the ground the young alfalfa will grow from half an 
inch to an inch a day the first six days, under favorable 
conditions with a fine seed bed, and not a deep one. 
There is no root of any grass on the face of the earth 
that grows so rapidly and seems to revel in the hard 
soil. Give it a fair start and it will take care of itself, 
but if you coddle it with manures, fertilizers, limes, 
etc., it is like any other baby that is given too many 
sweetmeats and goodies, and it will get sick and die. 



Alfalfa, "The Grass/' 69 

Before man appeared upon the earth alfalfa was blown 
to and fro by the winds. In trying to secure a stand 
of this valuable legume we are most apt to succeed 
by following the simple and beautiful methods of 
nature. 

Some of the greatest inventions that benefit the 
human race have been the result of accident. Men 
have studied and labored for years working on theories, 
to devise some useful machine, only to be baffled, and 
then some trifling event or accident has brought an 
answer to the problem, but the answer comes as a 
reward of intelligent labor. It is so with alfalfa. 
Several years ago Mr. John Holt, the popular singer 
of Meigs County, Ohio, wanted to sow five acres in 
millet, on a piece of land at the foot of a hill. He 
sent for the seed and sowed it without any extra 
expense in manure, lime, labor, fertilizers and inocula- 
tion. 

He got a stand, but it did not look like millet. 
The seedman had made a mistake and sent him alfalfa 
seed. 

It did well, except where a "water sprout" came 
from under the strata of rock and made a wet strip 
through the field. Here it soon died out. 

Last year in Noble County, Ohio, near Summer- 
field, Mr. McClintock and his son, a graduate of 
Purdue University, resolved to try five acres of alfalfa. 
A rich level field was selected. One corner, about a 
fourth of an acre, was a rising clay knoll and the 
soil has washed off of it. The land was heavily 



70 Alfalfa, "The Grass." 

manured except this corner. The supply of manure 
ran out, and the piece that needed it most got none. 
The father insisted that this corner be manured before 
the field was plowed, but the son plowed the field up 
without putting manure on the corner. It was har- 
rowed and put in good condition and sowed to alfalfa. 
The season was wet, and the crab grass and foxtail 
and weeds took possession, thanks to the manure. 
The field was mowed several times, but the weeds 
choked out and killed the alfalfa, and in the fall 
the only place that there was a stand of alfalfa was on 
the poor clay ground where no manure had been 
placed. 

In Harrison County, Ohio, last year, Hon. J. K. 
McLaughlin tried to get a stand of alfalfa in a seven- 
acre field on a rolling hillside. The ground was heavily 
manured, plowed and carefully prepared and sowed, 
but the grass and weeds started, aided by the manure, 
and the alfalfa was a failure. There is a vein of coal 
on the land, and in one end of the field a shaft 60 
feet deep had been sunk to test the coal vein. The 
earth from the shaft was thrown out in the field 
around the mouth. It was such soil as had been de- 
posited by the glacial drift and floods from the ice — 
clay, gravel, shale and sand. In sowing the field 
the seed was blown by the wind onto this earth that 
had received no preparation for seed of any kind. In 
the fall the only place where the alfalfa was doing 
well and had outgrown the weeds was on the ground 
around the mouth of the shaft. 



Alfalfa, "The Grass." 71 

These accidents ought to teach the important les- 
son that it is not necessary to overdo the matter in 
trying to get a stand of alfalfa. 

Alfalfa will grow quicker, easier and last longer 
on poor soil than any grass that grows, except sweet 
clover, and alfalfa will grow and flourish wherever 
sweet clover will grow, except on wet ground. 



When to Sow Alfalfa in Ohio. 

(73)) 







Kansas Alfalfa Seed, Fairly Clean. 



CHAPTER I5t. 
When to Sow Alfalfa in Ohio. 

Success in securing a stand of alfalfa depends 
upon several conditions, such as the soil, the weather, 
the seed, but I think the most important consideration 
is the man. It depends more upon him than any other 
thing. 

If a man farms with his feet, and not with his head, 
he had better never try to grow alfalfa, because he 
will never succeed. 

This is a progressive age, and the farmer who 
wishes to keep up with the procession and secure a 
fair return from his land and for his labor must think 
and adopt up-to-date methods and machinery. He 
can't do things the way grandfather did and succeed 
like grandfather did, because father and grandfather 
farmed a virgin soil, rich in fertility, which has been 
wasted by careless farming and reckless methods. 
They as a rule farmed for their own day and genera- 
tion and took no heed for the future or succeeding 
generations. The successful farmer of to-day must not 
only farm for this generation, but the next, and by 
taking care of his farm during his lifetime he is taking 
the best care of it for the next generation. 

Alfalfa can be sown with safety and success in 
Ohio from May to August. My own experience has 

(75) 



76 Alfalfa, "The Grass." 

convinced me that July is the best month in which to 
sow alfalfa, after oats, wheat or early potatoes or 
in the corn at the last cultivation. Then the excessive 
growth of weeds is over. Do not sow during a dry 
spell. It is better to disk or harrow and work the 
ground over until it looks like rain. If you sow during 
a dry spell the seed will not germinate, and you may 
lose your labor and seed. During the last two years, 
which have been unusually wet, some have sown as late 
as September and secured a stand with growth enough 
to protect the plant during the winter. To carry alfalfa 
through the frequent changes of our winters it is 
absolutely necessary that it should be protected by 
a growth of at least 12 inches, no difference how old 
the plant is, for if left without a sufficient growth to 
protect it it will heave out. As our seasons of August 
and September are usually dry, and the alfalfa will 
not become rooted deep enough or produce growth 
sufficient to withstand the winter. I have never failed 
to get a stand of alfalfa in July by sowing before a 
rain. We usually have three or four rains in July, 
and it is always safe to plant during this month, but 
you run risks of losing your stand by sowing later. 
But common sense and weather conditions should 
govern. Alfalfa sown in July will be ready to harvest 
the succeeding June. 

If I had a field that was heavily manured and in 
corn the year before I would not plow the field in the 
spring if I wished to sow alfalfa. I would disk it and 
sow to oats, using not more than a bushel to the acre, 



Alfalfa, "The Grass/' 77 

and sow from 6 to lo pounds of alfalfa seed to the 
acre. Set the grass seed sprouts for the alfalfa, so 
that the seed will fall behind the hoes, and not be 
covered, and between the rows of oats. The alfalfa 
will start before the oats. The oats should be cut 
for hay. Set the machine high, and the alfalfa will be 
clipped off in the oats and makes the finest feed for 
all kinds of stock. 

There is no trouble about using oats as a cover crop 
for alfalfa unless you let the oats mature. Some prefer 
to use barley. Either would do, but rye and wheat 
stool out too much and shade the alfalfa. The object 
in sowing oats or barley is not to raise a crop of either, 
but to keep down the growth of the weeds and grass. 
Some call these crops "nurse crops," but, as a rule, if 
allowed to mature with alfalfa, they are not "nurse 
crops," but robber crops, and when the grain ripens 
they do not "nurse," but they rob the soil of both 
moisture and fertility and kill off the alfalfa, hence the 
wisdom of cutting before the oats or barley ripen. 
Yet there are farmers who let both crops mature and 
secure a stand of alfalfa, but there is always a risk 
of losing much of your alfalfa, and you want the 
alfalfa, and not th« oats or barley, and when you get 
a stand of alfalfa you have a product that will last a 
lifetime and yield abundantly each year. 

If it is desired to sow alfalfa in May or June with- 
out a cover crop, the ground should be frequently 
harrowed to kill off the grass and the weeds and give 
the tender alfalfa a fair field and a good start. 



78 Alfalfa, "The Grass." 

Remember there is danger of sowing alfalfa too 
early in the spring and having it killed by the frosts. 
A freeze this year on May 21 killed off much young 
alfalfa, resulting in a loss of seed and labor. 



The Seed and the Amount to Sow, 

(79) 




Ohio Grown Alfalfa Seed, Clean and Good. 



CHAPTER X. 
The Seed and the Amount to Sow. 

The question of good, clean alfalfa seed is of prime 
importance. There is such a demand for alfalfa seed 
that unscrupulous seed dealers are imposing upon 
farmers by selling all sorts of trash as the pure alfalfa 
seed. There are honorable seed dealers who refuse 
to sell any but good, clean seed. Sow good seed or 
don't sow at all. Don't buy cheap seed. You may 
be sure that it is adulterated. It is cheaper to pay 
the top price for first-class seed than to pay a low 
price for poor seed. You get more seed and at less 
cost by buying a first-class article than by buying 
cheaper stuff. 

Next to securing good seed comes the master 
problem of all in securing a stand of alfalfa — how 
much to sow to the acre. When the seedmen get a 
good thing they push it along. For years government 
bulletins and seedmen's circulars have taught that the 
only way to get a stand of alfalfa was to sow not less 
than 30 pounds to the acre. This has been the gen- 
erally accepted idea, and it has been sustained by the 
agricultural press. All the writers, professors and 
institute lecturers have been emphasizing the beauties 
of sowing 30 pounds to the acre. I have felt from 
the first that this was a good thing for those who sell 

6 (81) 



82 Alfalfa, "The Grass.'* 

seed, but a poor thing for the farmer who buys seed. 
I have opposed this with my pen and voice in season 
and out, and after years of agitation I find that all 
the large alfalfa growers are pointing out the mistake 
of overseeding and are recommending from 6 to 12 
pounds to the acre. 

There have been more failures to secure a per- 
manent, paying stand of alfalfa from overseeding than 
from any other single cause. 

There are 45,560 square feet in an acre. The 
number of seed in a pound of alfalfa ranges from 
170,000 to 210,000 seeds. Say the average is 200,000, 
in 30 pounds there would be 6,000,000 seeds ; sowing 
30 pounds to the acre would make 137 seeds to the 
square foot. If half of them germinated there would 
be nearly 70 plants to the square foot. You can get 
more nutritious food from a thin stand than you can 
from a thick stand. Sixty per cent of the feeding 
value of the alfalfa is in the leaves. 

In a thick stand the plant does not stool. There 
is a feeble root and a slim, narrow stem, and the leaves 
do not form on the lower part of the plant, or fall 
off of the first 12 inches. When the plants stand 
thin on the ground and stool the leaves form on the 
stems as low down as the mowing machine will cut; 
so thick seeding from this standpoint is a serious 
mistake. 

Take your pencil and figure out how many seeds 
there will be to the square foot with 25, 20, 15 and 
10 pounds of seed to the acre. With 10 pounds to 



Alfalfa, "The Grass/' 83 

the acre there would be 2,000,000 seeds, or 45 seeds 
to the square foot. If half of the seeds germinate 
you would have over 20 plants to the square foot. 
Four plants to the square foot is an ideal stand. Two 
plants will produce as much hay as eight. The second 
year, with two plants to the square foot, each plant 
will put out 50 shoots and be strong and healthy and 
go on increasing until the fifth year. Then there 
will be 200 shoots to the plant, while the alfalfa that 
has been sown at the rate of 30 pounds to the acre will 
not stool, and the plants are so crowded that they begin 
to sicken and die out ; besides they are thin, spindley 
and feeble. The root system is so thick that there 
is no chance for vigor and growth, and often the whole 
field will sicken and die. There would be as much 
sense in sowing 12 bushels of oats or wheat or corn 
to the acre and expecting a profitable crop as sowing 
30 pounds of alfalfa seed to the acre. 

Six pounds of good alfalfa is an abundance to 
sow to the acre. If only two-thirds of the seed ger- 
minated this would give you six plants to the square 
foot. 

An Ohio farmer told me last year that he got a 
good stand of alfalfa by sowing only three pounds 
to the acre. 

I feel encouraged by finding that many experienced 
alfalfa growers are awakening to the fact that they 
have been overseeding and are urging the use of less 
seed. 



84 Alfalfa, "The Grass." 

In its last circular, issued March, 1906, on alfalfa, 
the Kansas Experiment Station says : 

"The general practice has been, and perhaps still 
is, to sow from 20 to 30 pounds of seed per acre, but 
many of the oldest and most successful alfalfa growers 
are now using much less seed. At the 1904 meeting 
of the Kansas Improved Live Stock Association, Mr. 
A. E. Sutton, of Russell County, stated, during a dis- 
cussion on this subject, that he had secured a good 
stand of alfalfa by sowing only six pounds of seed 
per acre. Col. J. W. Robinson, of Towanda, Kansas, 
who grows thousands of acres of alfalfa on his large 
farms in Butler County, stated that he was then seed- 
ing 15 pounds of alfalfa to the acre, but that he in- 
tended to reduce this amount to not more than 10 
of 12 pounds per acre of good seed. Hon. C. B. 
Daughters, of Manhattan, Kansas, secured a splendid 
stand of alfalfa on his Blue Valley farm, near Man- 
hattan, by sowing eight pounds of seed per acre in 
the spring of 1903 ; and so throughout the state I 
have found other farmers who now practice seeding 
12 to 15 pounds of alfalfa per acre, while formerly 
they used from 20 to 30 pounds. At this station a 
trial of seeding dififerent amounts of alfalfa seed per 
acre was undertaken in the spring of 1904. Alfalfa 
was seeded broadcast at dififerent rates, varying from 
6 to 36 pounds per acre. The soil was early spring 
plowing which had been well settled by a sub-surface 
packer, making a good seed bed. The result of the 
trial was a fair stand of alfalfa, even on the most 



Alfalfa, 'The Grass." 85 

thinly seeded, while where the amount of seed was 
from lo to 12 pounds per acre an excellent stand was 
secured. The heavier seeding gave a little thicker 
stand, but fewer healthy plants than the thinner seed- 
ing. Altogether these trials and the general experi- 
ence of the farmers prove that it is not necessary to 
use so large an amount of alfalfa seed per acre as has 
been the usual practice." 

In Wisconsin, Hoard's Dairyman has been one of 
the most earnest advocates of 30 pounds of alfalfa 
seed to the acre. In a recent issue o^ t^^e paper, W. J. 
Spillman, a successful alfalfa grower, says : 

"I am inclined to believe that some of us have 
made mistakes by sowing too much alfalfa seed. Two 
years ago, on our farm, we prepared 20 acres of land 
for this crop, in July after wheat, harrowing it 8 
or 10 times, getting it into the finest tilth imaginable. 
This made an ideal seed bed. We sowed 20 pounds 
of good alfalfa seed to the acre, and I am confident 
that the stand was too thick. There is a distinct re- 
lation between the amount of seed to use and the 
state of preparation of the land. I think that on land 
prepared like that above described 10 pounds of seed 
would have made an excellent stand. However, if 
the land is cloddy, or otherwise in bad condition, it 
may be necessary to use even as much as 35 pounds 
of seed. Usually it will be cheaper to put the land 
into an ideal condition of tilth and use a smaller 
amount of seed." 

Many fields of alfalfa have been plowed up because 



86 Alfalfa, "The Grass." 

the stand was not as thick as the hair on a dog's back. 
They had a good stand and did not know it. They 
did not give it a chance to stool out and show itself 
in the spring before it was plowed. I have a neighbor 
who sowed five acres of alfalfa during the summer 
of 1905. Last spring it did not look thick enough 
and he started to plow it up and turned under all but 
an acre. In four weeks he was at my place ond said: 
"The alfalfa that he did not plow up was growing 
in the most astonishing manner. I had a stand of 
alfalfa and did not know it." 



Care and Culture of Alfalfa in Ohio. 

(87; 




Alfalfa Sl\ Years Old Pastured too Close and Heaved- 

OUT. 



CHAPTER XL 
Care and Culture of Alfalfa in Ohio. 

The critical period of a stand of alfalfa is the first 
six weeks. A good seed bed made by thorough tillage 
to kill off the weeds and good natural or artificial 
drainage are absolutely necessary. To start with do 
not sow in the spring until the ground has been thor- 
oughly worked over. Do not sow without a cover 
crop of either oats ar barley. Do not be tempted on 
account of the oats or barley to sow too early. You 
may succeed, but there is always danger of losing your 
alfalfa, while you may save your oats and barley. 
Having complied with these requirements, the field 
requires no attention. 

If you want alfalfa do not be tempted to let the 
grain ripen. Some have done it and have succeeded, 
but there is always danger of injury to the alfalfa 
from the grain lodging or exhaustion of the moisture 
and fertility in the soil when the grain ripens. Cut 
for hay. Cut the grain when in bloom. Do not set the 
machine low, but set it high, and catch the top of the 
alfalfa in the hay. Unless the season is very un- 
favorable there is nothing more to do to the alfalfa. 
There will be a good growth after July, but do not 
be tempted to cut it. After this date the weeds can not 
hurt it, and leave all for a cover to protect the plant 

(89) 



90 Alfalfa, "The Grass." 

during the winter. After you have cut the grain for 
hay it may be very dry, and in cases of overseeding 
the plant will look yellow and sickly. In such cases 
do not cut the alfalfa, but put a disk on the field, 
set to cut about two inches. You will kill some of 
the young alfalfa, but that will strengthen and invig- 
orate the remainder, and you will preserve your alfafa 
and get a larger hay crop the next June than if you 
allowed all to remain. 

If you sow in July, and remember that this is the 
best time to sow, without a cover crop, sow in the 
corn when you lay it by. Sow after oats or wheat. 
Disk and make a fine seed bed and kill ofT the weeds, 
but do not plow unless compelled to, on account 
of weeds and igrass which prevents disking. If 
you do you only turn up a fresh lot of weeds 
to combat and choke the alfalfa. You need a 
fine seed bed, not a deep one. Sow before a 
and even loamy soils, many seed will not come through 
if covered, while the penetrating root can go through 
the crust on any kind of soil. Many authorities who 
write wisely, but never planted an alfalfa seed, sagely 
say cover the seed. I repeat the statement and em- 
phasize it, because it is of vital importance in securing 
a stand of alfalfa, DO NOT COVER ALFALFA 
SEED, because the root can go down when the top 
can not come up. Eight years' experience with alfalfa 
seeding has confirmed the truth and importance of this 
practice. It is vital to the success of a stand of alfalfa, 
and I am firmly convinced t^at many of the failures 



Alfalfa, "The Grass/' 91 

in securing a stand of alfalfa have been because the 
seed has been laid away in its cold grave beyond all 
hopes of resurrection, and the failure has been charged 
by the wise dreamers to lack of bacteria and a failure 
to inoculate the soil. 

Every plant has its parasite. The parasite does 
not precede and produce the plant, but when soil, 
air and sunshine are favorable the seed germinates 
and the parasite is a part of the necessary life of the 
plant and performs some mission necessary to the 
growth of the plant, about which scientists as yet 
know absolutely nothing, but they attempt to solve the 
problem by guessing, and inoculation is one of their 
last guesses. It is only a guess, and a poor, weak, 
foolish one at that, but it has been expensive for the 
farmers. 

The Master Chemist of the Universe in the labora- 
tory of eternity worked out the problem before matter 
came into form, and ordained that the germ of the 
parasite should be in the germ of the plant, and all 
the sages, scientists, savants and professors in the 
world can not reverse the order of creation. 

The theory of inoculation, as far as the practical 
operations of the farm are concerned, is not worth a 
moment's consideration by any sensible man. It may 
serve to amuse dreamers, lunatics and babblers. 

For the enterprising firm which manufactures nitro- 
cultures according to the official formula to sell to 
suckers, or the person who sells inoculated dirt at a 
(|ollar a barrel, it is a charming and paying pastime 



92 Alfalfa, "The Grass." 

to be an enthusiastic advocate of the benefits and neces- 
sity of inoculation, and if I had the skinflint habit 
and loved money more than my fellow-man I would 
cry inoculation with a megaphone from the top of 
Washington's monument. When I can plant potato 
bugs and raise potatoes I will sow bacteria to raise 
alfalfa, but when I can raise alfalfa without inocula- 
tion I shall waste no time upon it. Life is too short 
and money is too scarce. 

I have dug up the roots of sweet clover and red 
clover and found nodules on them, but I have never 
found an alfalfa root with such evidences of bacteria. 
My land is too poor to raise nodules, but it produces 
alfalfa. 

To show under what adverse conditions alfalfa 
seed will sprout and grow, I will give an example. 
There is a gravel road leading to a cemetery on the 
south end of my place. It is traveled almost daily. 
In 1904 I saw a letter from Director Thorne, of the 
Ohio Experiment Station, to a neighbor, saying that 
alfalfa seed could not be raised in Ohio. I let an acre 
of the second crop go to seed to disprove or prove this 
official utterance. In hauilng this alfalfa in, a wagon 
load was taken over the cemetery road, and the seed 
dropped on the road in the hard gravel and sprouted 
and grew, and has been growing there for three years. 
Some dropped in the grass along the fence, and has 
been growing there ever since. The accidents confirm 
the belief that alfalfa seed should never be covered. 



Alfalfa, "The Grass." 93 

and if not covered it would grow under the most ad- 
verse circumstances. 

Alfalfa sown in July under proper preparations 
and conditions such as have been described needs no 
treatment. It may grow i6 inches. Do not cut it 
under any circumstances. One of the Fernow boys, 
a cattle breeder in Highland County, Ohio, near Lees- 
burg, sowed seven acres of alfalfa last year in August. 
It was a wet August and he got a good stand. In 
October it was 12 inches high, and they told him that 
he must cut it. He did, and there was not growth 
enough to protect the plant, and this spring has been 
so very unfavorable that he has lost it all. Had he 
not cut it in the fall he would have had a splendid 
stand of alfalfa. 

Some of you will persist in sowing alfalfa in the 
spring without a cover crop. The grass and weeds 
will come with the alfalfa, and you will have to cut 
several times to give the alfalfa a chance. This is one 
great advantage of sowing in July, when the excessive 
growth of vegetation has abated. 

In Tuscarawas County, Ohio, I saw a farmer who 
had sowed five acres of alfalfa in April without a cover 
crop. The season was favorable and it did well. In 
June it was 16 inches high, and he cut it, because he 
had seen a piece in a paper that said cut it and leave it 
as a mulch. He did. The growth was so heavy that 
the whole field smothered out. Had he raked it up 
and hauled it off he would have had several loads of 
splendid feed and would have saved his alfalfa. 



94 Alfalfa, "The Grass.*' 

In cutting to keep down weeds there is danger of 
clipping too close, and if you leave the cutting on the 
ground of smothering the alfalfa. I have a neighbor 
who planted 17 acres last spring, but the season was wet 
and weed growth rank. He cut it and raked it into 
windrows and left it on the field. When it became dry 
he burned it. He has no alfalfa where he burned the 
trash which he was too lazy to haul ofif. 

This covers all the treatment that the alfalfa needs 
the first year. It needs no attention except to harvest 
it the second year. The third year it will be in its 
prime and four crops can be cut ; and the yield can be 
increased by disking early in the spring and immedi- 
ately after each cutting. The disk ought to be set to 
cut not over two or three inches deep. This will make 
a mulch that will keep the moisture in the ground 
and will kill the weeds and grass that may have 
started. Experience alone can teach you how deep 
to disk and how often better than I can tell you. Use 
your own head and the disk. 

If weeds and grass start the second year great 
benefit can be done the alfalfa by going over it with a 
spike tooth harrow. It will do the alfalfa as much 
good as harrowing the corn. Don't be afraid to try it. 
To kill alfalfa you must eat off or cut off the crown 
of the plant. It will thrive under all sorts of treatment 
as long as you leave the crown intact. 

After the third year you can set the disk so as to 
cut four inches. It will split the crown, increase the 
number of shoots and the yield. 



The Wagon is One of the Most Im= 
portant Implements on the Farm 



But often in buying a wagon very little 
thought is given the matter. An enormous 
amount of money is wasted yearly in labor lost 
in loading and unloading, in cutting up fields 
and roads and in horse feed. All this waste 
because so many keep on using the old, heavy, 
high wheeled wagons with narrow tires for 
work for which they should never be used. 
The style wagon known as the low down or 
handy wagon providing it is well constructed 
and durable, is as necessary to every farm as 
fresh water. The low wagon with broad tired 
wheels should always be used for hauling hay, 
fodder, manure or stock, for stacking grain or 
driving over soft fields. If the ALL STEEL 
WAGON shown in the cuts is used one need 
not be particular about keeping it under cover. 
These steel wagons which are manufactured at 
Wapakoneta, Ohio, are considered the best 
farm wagons on the market. They are built 
so as to keep the bed as near the ground as 
possible, are made of steel but are very light, 
much stronger than the ordinary wagon, have 
light draft and are not expensive. It is 
claimed that they will last a life time, and the 
expense of keeping them practically amounts 
to nothing. 



Wagons that are Being Used E,xtensively 

and Which are Highly Recom = 

mended for Farm Use 




A Bruner All Steel Wagon 

-With- 

31 and 37" Wheels. 4 by 3=8" Tires 

Manufactured at Wapakoneta, Ohio 




A Bruner All Steel Wagon 

-With- 
25 and 31" Wheels and StocK RacR 



Making Alfalfa Hay in Ohio. 

(95) 




p-t 



< 



u 



CHAPTER XII. 
Making Alfalfa Hay in Ohio. 

In June, 1902, I cut my first alfalfa. I was told to 
cut it when one-tenth was in bloom. I followed these 
instructions for two years, and from observation I 
found that while this rule may be followed in the 
West it was not best in Ohio. When the first crop 
is ready to cut in June it grows on an average to a 
heighth of 48 inches, and if you wait for it to bloom it 
becomes rank and woody and is almost sure to lodge 
and become a tangled mass ; and as the leaves are the 
most valuable portion, many will be lost by the alfalfa 
lodging and becoming rusty, and the leaves fall off 
and the hay is not so valuable. I found if you delay 
cutting the first crop until one-tenth was in bloom 
the hay was not relished as well by the cattle and 
horses, and it injured and delayed succeeding crops 
so that only three crops could be secured in a year. 
Bulletins from Western state experiment stations con- 
firm this fact. 

When red clover has been grown without any guide 
in harvesting alfalfa one is apt to follow the methods 
used in harvesting that crop, and by waiting too long 
for the blooms to come, often lose their alfalfa in the 
second year. 

7 (97) 



98 Alfalfa, "The Grass." 

The Chemical Department of the Kansas Experi- 
ment station reports the following: 

"The great value of alfalfa is in the large amount 
of protein it contains, that material in feed that is 
absolutely necessary for the formation of blood, bone, 
meat and milk. The higher the protein in alfalfa the 
more valuable the hay. The effect of cutting the alfalfa 
at different stages is as follows : 

Protein 
per cent. 

One-tenth in bloom 18.5 

One-half in bloom 17.2 

In full bloom 14.4 

The Colorado Experiment Station found the re- 
sult of cutting alfalfa as follows : 

Protein 
per cent. 

Coming in bloom 18.5 

Half in bloom 14. G 

In full bloom 12.9 

The Utah Experiment Station for five years cut 
alfalfa at different stages of maturity and fed the crop 
in producing beef. The average production per year 
per acre was as follows : 

Hay, Beef. 

tons. pounds. 

In fir.st bloom 5.35 700 

In full bloom 4.90 562 

Half blooms fallen 4.55 490 



Alfalfa, "The Grass/' 99 

These tests show that the alfalfa cut just preceding 
the bloom, or upon the first appearance, the better 
will be the hay and the greater the feeding value. 

I have found that the best time to cut the first 
crop is before the blooms appear. At this stage of 
the growth the plant puts up spikes for the blossom 
and the whole appearance of the field undergoes a 
change. Going into the field at this time and spread- 
ing out the stems on the crown a number of tender 
shoots may be seen starting up. If the alfalfa is cut 
at this stage these plans come on vigorously, but if the 
alfalfa is allowed to remain until the blossoms appear 
in full the tender shoots begin to halt and cease to 
grow, because the energy and capacity of the plant is 
taxed to produce flower and seed. 

The mission of all forms of life is to reproduce 
themselves, and wonderful as alfalfa is it can not grow 
seed and produce a hay crop at the same time. 

Let me impress upon you the importance of cutting 
a new stand of alfalfa for hay not to let it get into 
blossom. Cut it when the spikes appear and the shoots 
start on the crown. 

In making alfalfa hay the first two years I had 
all sorts of trouble. I was told that alfalfa hay was 
harder to cure and worse to handle than red clover. 
I was officially instructed that the only safe way to 
save a crop of alfalfa was to have canvass caps made 
to cover the cocks and tuck the corners under the 
edges. But with 50 cocks to the acre and 12 acres it 
would take as much canvas as is used in a three- 



100 Alfalfa, "The Grass/' 

ringed circus, and I did not have the money to buy 
the canvas. If a man has a small patch of alfalfa, 
plenty of time and money to waste, he can amuse 
himself with this useless folly in making alfalfa hay. 

At first I left the alfalfa hay too long without 
raking up, as we do with red clover, and the leaves 
dried and scattered, and when I cocked it up the loss 
of their leaves or their being too dry delayed the evap- 
oration and prolonged fermentation of the stem, or 
the progress of sweating, as it is called. If it rained 
the cocks had to be opened, and then cocked up again 
and left standing sometimes for a week, and where 
they stood the growing alfalfa was smothered, and 
the next crop was delayed and injured. But I stuck 
to my job and studied the plant. I found that the 
leaves constituted over half of the feeding value, a 
ton of alfalfa leaves being equal to 2,800 pounds of 
bran, and the essential thing was to save the leaves. 
The second year I began curing the hay with this 
object in view, and then learned that the fresher the 
leaves were kept the quicker the stems were dried out. 

This proved the key to the problem, as the leaves 
are the lungs of the plant, and as long as kept fresh 
they perform their function of breathing. Then I 
learned that the best time to make alfalfa hay was 
not when the sun shone, as the old proverb says, but 
when the wind blew; nothing can do more injury to 
freshly cut alfalfa than to let it lie spread out under 
the burning sun. This will do it more injury than a 
hard rain. Alfalfa will stand more rain if raked into 



Alfalfa, "The Grass." 101 

windrows and suffer less injury than any kind of hay. 
By cocking the alfalfa it did not cure and in a season 
knocked out one cutting. 

There has been difficulty and always will be trouble 
in curing alfalfa hay on first and second bottoms along 
streams, where the moisture hangs in the valleys and 
rises from the streams and ground like steam and 
prevents the alfalfa from drying out quickly and prop- 
erly ; whereas on the hills and high rolling ground the 
wind can cure the hay while it is being cocked in the 
bottom fields. The difficulty in cnrin;; '.Ifalfa hay in 
bottom fields in Ohio has given birth and currency 
to the exaggerated stories about the great troubles 
and almost impossible task of making alfalfa hay, and 
the fertilizer men have not been slow to repeat these 
doleful statements at every crossroads grocery. 

In Ohio you can cut four crops of alfalfa with 
safety, and the average yield will be from five to eight 
tons per acre each year ; but when alfalfa is ready 
to cut it must be cut, and it is cut by every farmer 
who grows it when he has learned its value. Other 
crops can wait, but alfalfa is a jealous lass and re- 
quires the most constant attention at the right time 
if you want her to be true to you. 

In 1905 I cut four crops of alfalfa in June, July, 
August and September, totaling 12 feet 3 inches of 
grass. In 1906 I cut four crops in the four months 
named, cutting on June 2, July 5, August 10 and 
September 16. 12 feet 6 inches of grass. The yield 
ran from 10 tons on one part of the field to 5 tons 



102 Alfalfa, 'The Grass." 

on the rest. This was the fifth year since planting and 
the sixth season. 

When the alfalfa is ready to cut the machine goes 
onto the field after the dew is ofif in the morning 
and is run until noon, cutting down as much as can 
be raked up and hauled ofif in the afternoon. If the 
sun is shining we begin raking up after dinner in 
windrows, raking that cut first, and when through rak- 
ing the hay is loaded and hauled to the barn. It is 
not dumped in bunches in the mow, but is scattered 
around. The loading and mowing gives it an airing 
that is ample to keep it in prime condition. 

If it rains then comes another problem. The last 
two rainy seasons have been hard on the hay making. 
But if it looks like rain the hay is raked into windrows. 
It does better in the windrows than spread out, and 
when the sun comes out the leaves do not dry and 
scatter, but seem to toughen. If it clears the next day, 
when the windrow dries off it is turned over, and in 
the afternoon it is ready to haul in. It is left in the 
windrows as long as it rains. If you cock it when 
green it will begin to sweat and heat when packed to- 
gether. This it never does in the windrow. 

I put all my alfalfa hay under shelter, an important 
lesson that Ohio farmers must learn, to save loss and 
make farming pay a fair return for labor, time and 
capital invested, and that is to provide shelter for all 
crops and grain, and not leave them out of doors 
subject to injury and loss because of the weather con- 
ditions. 



Alfalfa, "The Grass." 103 

Alfalfa may be stacked out in Ohio and it will 
keep perfectly fresh and sweet if the stack is covered 
with grass or hay to shed water. Like other hay, it 
needs a man to do the stacking who knows his busi- 
ness, and there are not many left in these days of 
rapid progress and improved machinery who do. 
Stacking hay successfully requires as much experience 
and brains as any work on the farm, and this accom- 
plishment seems to becoming one of the lost arts. 

There will always be more trouble in curing the 
first crop af alfalfa each year than any other crop. 
Sometimes before a hay crop is all in some of the hay 
may become wet, or a load may be caught on the way 
to the barn. By putting a layer of straw over the 
hay and putting the wet on top and scattering it around 
it will dry out in the mow and will not injure the 
other hay. I have put three cuttings on top of each 
other without any injury. I have never lost any alfalfa 
by overheating in the mow, but I lost it one season in 
the stack. It was not the fault of the alfalfa, but of 
the shoemaker that did the stacking. Water does not 
destroy alfalfa hay. A long rain after cutting will 
shatter the leaves and injure the feeding value, but 
after this exposure all the stock on the farm will go 
to it and eat it in preference to timothy. 

The most trouble (the leaves being the most valu- 
able part of the plant it is dangerous to use a tedder 
in making alfalfa hay) with alfalfa hay comes from 
the first cutting. It is so rank and rich that it takes 
longer to cure than the other crops. The first, or 



104 Alfalfa, "The Grass." 

June, cutting ought never to be stacked for the reason 
given, but should be placed in the mow. The other 
cuttings may be stacked with safety. 

Alfalfa is such a wonderful plant, it has so many 
peculiarities, and it presents different features under 
the variations of soil, climate and conditions that we 
have much to learn about it. I have never talked 
to a man who has raised alfalfa that he did not tell 
of some feature or peculiarity that he had discovered. 
This is work is not intended as a book of revelations. 
The writer is trying to tell all that he has learned 
from experience, and give the reader the benefit of 
his knowledge gained from his mistakes and successes. 
He expects to learn a great deal more about alfalfa 
if he lives a few years longer, but if he waited until 
he learned it all he would never write a book on 
alfalfa. 

All who are interested in this remarkable forage 
plant should aid in its introduction and growth by 
careful study, and be willing to give their fellow- 
farmers the benefit of their experience. For this 
reason don't be afraid to use your brains and to try 
to solve alfalfa problems in Ohio that are staggering 
many and discouraging others, 



The Enemies of Alfalfa in Ohio. 

(105) 




1. 



1. Plantain, the Worst Enemy of Alfalfa in Ohio. 

2. Alfalfa Eleven Months Old, Planted in the Corn 
July 20, 1906. 



CHAPTER XIII. 
The Enemies of Alfalfa in Ohio. 

The worst enemy of alfalfa in Ohio is man. 

Some men can't grow it. 

Some men won't grow it. 

Some men don't want to grow it. 

There are many wise and learned men who say it 
won't grow in Ohio. 

There are selfish men connected with feed and 
fertilizer firms who don't want alfalfa to grow in Ohio, 
because it will make the farmer independent of their 
business. These, with the wise men who are often 
hired, have worked overtime telling the difficulties 
in obtaining a stand of alfalfa and raising insurmount- 
able obstacles, like mountains, in the way of growing 
alfalfa and discouraging many from making the at- 
tempt. 

Outside of man there are few enemies that jeopar- 
dize a stand of alfalfa. 

I have heard of two instances where grasshoppers 
last year destroyed fields of alfalfa, one in Clarke 
and the other in Madison County. Upon inquiry I 
found the young alfalfa had been clipped in August, 
just as the grasshoppers were coming on, and they 
had eaten the tender shoots until the plant died. 
There is always danger of clipping young alfalfa too 

(107) 



108 Alfalfa, "The Grass/' 

close, and if grasshoppers are numerous the youn;^' 
plant ought not to be clipped at all, because if left 
growing they can not injure it. 

So far there are no insects that are a menace to 
the plant. 

Great stress has been laid upon the Dodder plant, 
but it is not a menace and cuts little figure. 

In the alfalfa seed imported from Europe Dodder 
seed has been used as an adulterant, and in that way 
has been introduced in our alfalfa fields, but it only 
lasts a year, and the frequent cutting of alfalfa kills 
the Dodder. This weed is a slender vine that grows 
up and feeds on the alfalfa. The root dying, it must 
go to seed to reproduce itself. If cut before it seeds, 
as it must be in harvesting alfalfa, it disappears. I 
had Dodder in my first alfalfa, but in cutting the alfalfa 
the second year the Dodder disappeared and has never 
made its appearance again. 

The worst enemies of young alfalfa when planted 
in the spring are such grasses as foxtail and crab- 
grass, and if these get started with the alfalfa they 
will usually crowd out and kill the alfalfa. On account 
of these grasses it is best not to sow in the spring, 
but to sow in July. 

The two worst weeds in old alfalfa fields are sorrel 
and plantain. Buckhorn is often found in alfalfa seed, 
and if it once gets a hold and is permitted to grow 
without being checked it will kill the alfalfa and take 
the field. The only way to keep it down, as well as 



Alfalfa, "The Grass/' 109 

sorrel, is to begin disking the second year after each 
cutting. 

There seems to be an affinity between alfalfa and 
blue grass, and if the latter is not checked in the course 
of three or four years it will take possession. It can 
be kept down and out by disking after the second year, 
which cuts up the young blue grass and serves as a 
cultivation for the alfalfa. 

Mr. Jno. M. Jaminson, of Ross County, Ohio, 
who has had great success with alfalfa, says : 

"Where blue grass is indigenous alfalfa v/il! no" 
always grow if the land is put in proper condition, for 
the former will thrive on land entirely too wet for the 
latter. It may be desirable in some cases to have the 
two together for pasture, but I can hardly believe the 
combination as valuable as the alfalfa alone. On rough 
lands, too rough for making hay over, if alfalfa can 
be made to start it will answer an excellent purpose in 
connection with blue grass as long as it will hold, 
but in time the blue grass will drive it out. rilnn-:^ v:lV^ 
the help of stock feeding on it, for I believe they 
prefer the alfalfa to the blue grass. I have found 
when I tried to pasture my alfalfa fields that the blue 
grass along the fences and in waste places is always 
neglected. No doubt this will be the fact when the 
two are grown together. Another point which must 
not be forgotten by those that contemplate growing 
them together — blue grass is a surface feeder and in 
a sense robber, for when pastured ofif close it gives 
no more back to the land than it takes from it ; hence 



110 Alfalfa, "The Grass." 

to live it must depend on leguminous plants to supply 
the nitrogen needed. White clover is its main helper 
in this direction, coming in at intervals as demanded 
or directed by nature. 

"Alfalfa makes strong deposits of nitrogen in the 
soil, making it a most desirable feeding ground for 
blue grass. The alfalfa on account of its deep rooting 
thrives and grows in dry, hot deather, when the blue 
grass is dormant. On the other hand, blue grass 
during the late fall, winter and early spring, when cold 
weather and continued frosts prevent any growth of 
the alfalfa, grows every warm, sunshiny day, spread- 
ing itself out and increasing the strength of its sod. 

"This spring, the last half of March, the alfalfa 
made a wonderful growth, outstripping everything 
else, some of it reaching a foot in heighth before the 
sharp freeze downed it all. 

"Since that, up to May the first, the continued 
freezes and frosts have kept it weak. Now the alfalfa 
fields have nearly lost their brown, dead color. Dur- 
ing this month of its weakness the blue grass has been 
making an excellent growth. In my six-year-old 
field some of the alfalfa was frozen out the second 
winter after seeding. In these spots blue grass has 
taken hold and is spreading itself. So it is only a 
question of time until the field will have to be plowed 
and resown. 

"Along the fences blue grass grows rank and 
seeds itself, gradually widening the strip that it occu- 
pies. In this field in some places the blue grass is 



Alfalfa, "The Grass/' 111 

making itself plain more than a rod from the fence. 
I have another field of lo acres, sown in August, 1906, 
that before that had been in a three-year rotation crop, 
of corn, wheat or rye and clover for 15 years, only 
such blue grass growing as could get a hold between 
times, probably none going to seed. During the years 
that the field was in rotation stable manure was used 
frequently, much of it hauled from town. And doubt- 
less in this hauling much of the blue grass seed was 
secured. Many blue grass tufts are starting in this 
field and many single plants are also starting. Doubt- 
less the latter would not have started this spring had 
the alfalfa escaped the check from freezing. As it 
is, they will get a strong start before the alfalfa gets 
large enough to shade it and hold it in check. At 
any rate, the blue grass will prove to be a weed in 
the alfalfa field, cutting short the life of the alfalfa 
to a considerable extent. 

"When blue grass sod is to be plowed for alfalfa 
sowing it will be advisable to cultivate the land in 
other crops for a year or two to get rid of the blue 
grass seed that may be in the soil. In this plowing 
it will be advisable to get as close to the fence as 
possible, for the strip of blue grass along the fence 
will constantly widen and push out the alfalfa." 

In Ohio young alfalfa, as in other Eastern states, 
has been attacked by leaf blight. When 10 or 12 
inches high the leaves turn yellow and fall ofif. No 
one as yet has been able to tell the cause of this con- 
dition. It has been noticed and studied for years, but 



112 Alfalfa, "The Grass/^ 

no explanation has been offered. When this bHght 
appears, clipping the tops, but not cutting close, seems 
to check the disease and invigorate the plant. This 
blight usually appears in the young plant, during the 
first year of its growth. It is like the measles with 
a baby ; it is one of the things the plant has to have. 
But in the spring of 1904 I was short of feed and 
sent the mower into one end of the field in May, when 
the alfalfa was about 20 inches high. The alfalfa 
was three years old. A narrow strip was cut, and 
the alfalfa hauled to the milk cows. This saved a trip 
to the mill to buy bran, at $20 per ton. When the 
alfalfa came up it all turned yellow, while the alfalfa 
beside it that had not been cut was never affected. 
When the field was cut for hay the blighted part was 
cut and it came back fresh and strong, and has not 
been affected since. 



Pasturing Alfalfa in Ohio. 

(113) 










Tunis Sheep on Alfalfa Pasture, on Farm ofW. 
Pickaway Co., O. 



I. Wood,. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

PASTURING ALFALFA IN OHIO. 

No more nourishing and nutritious feed ever grew 
out of the ground for all kinds of stock than alfalfa, 
and for this reason it is liable to abuse. 

No plant that ever grew on mother earth can pro- 
duce more meat, bone and muscle to the acre, at less 
cost in time, money and labor, than alfalfa. 

All kinds of poultry and stock will feed eagerly, 
ravenously, but too often with injury to themselves, 
and always with harm to the alfalfa. I have learned 
this lesson by sad and expensive experience, both in the 
loss of valuable Jersey cows, and finally in the loss of 
the alfalfa. If some wise scientific farmer had told 
me what I am telling the reader in this chapter, it 
would have saved me hundreds of dollars. 

The information I impart in this chapter is of such 
importance to all who grow alfalfa that I want to 
burn it in so you won't forget it, and won't grow 
reckless and careless and suffer needless loss. If I can 
do this and give to my fellow farmers the benefits of 
my experience, every one who reads this book and 
profits by my mistakes, will be compensated a hundred 
fold, and I shall not have written in vain. 

Alfalfa in Ohio can never be used as a permanent 
pasture and survive. Our extremes of climate are 

(115) 



116 Alfalfa^ "The Grass." 

such as to make it dangerous to the plant to allow any 
kind of stock upon it. It will stand any kind of treat- 
ment from all kinds of stock during the growing 
season, after the first year, but if used as permanent 
pasture, for hogs, cattle, horses, or sheep, they will 
trample down the crown of the alfalfa, and it will be- 
gin to die out. If pastured late in the fall, say in 
October, it is almost sure to heave during the freez- 
ing and thawing of winter, and die out. It never ought 
to be cut after September. It never ought to be pas- 
tured at all in Ohio, but the temptation will be too 
strong, and many will do it, but if you want to keep 
your alfalfa, stock should not be permitted on it after 
September i. The plant will need all of its growth 
after this date for protection from our severe weather 
and sudden changes in winter. No kind of stock or 
poultry ought to be turned on an alfalfa field the first 
year. 

Ducks and chickens will destroy a young alfalfa 
field if permitted to run on it, during the fall and 
winter of the first year, after this they can do no 
harm. 

Growing alfalfa does not injure any kind of stock 
except cattle and sheep. Both of these are liable to 
bloat unless the greatest care is used. I do not wish 
to give any instructions about how to pasture alfalfa, 
because I know that it ought not to be pastured, but 
some are too lazy to harvest this valuable crop, and 
want the stock to do it for them. Hogs and horses 
can be turned in any time during the growing season 



Alfalfa, "The Grass/^ 11? 

after the first year from the time the grass starts until 
September i, and will grow and flourish as on no other 
grass. You can start cattle and sheep in the spring 
with the grass and there is no danger of bloat, be- 
cause they keep the growth down and become used to 
it before it becomes rank. Turning cattle on alfalfa 
early in the spring does it good, and keeps the weeds 
down while the constant clipping of the alfalfa 
strengthens and invigorates the plant. I have pastured 
from March until May 15 and cut 48 inches of alfalfa 
on June 15. It took just 30 days for the crop to come 
after the cattle had been taken oflf. 

I lost some valuable Jersey by bloating on alfalfa, 
before I learned how to treat them, and a practical 
farmer gave me a sure and speedy remedy. I punched 
a hole in the pauch but they are all dead. They all 
went to the fertilizer factory for nothing, and I bought 
them back at $25 with some dirt thrown in a "filler" 
and for good measure. 

The farm papers and the scientific will tell you 
that the only remedy for hoven or bloat, is to secure a 
Torcar and Cannula and puncture the stomach or 
pouch and let the gas escape. This is brutal, cruel and 
unnecessary, and if the animal does not die its strength 
and usefulness is always impaired from the operation. 
The ordinary man is not v/ell enough informed upon 
the cow's anatomy to successfully perform this need- 
less operation. All ruminants have compound stom- 
achs and are liable to bloat. 

The green food when taken into the stomach com- 



118 Alfalfa, "The Grass/' 

ing in contact with animal heat, germinates carbonic 
acid gas, so suddenly and rapidly that the organs can 
not perform their natural functions and permit the 
gas to escape through the ordinary channels. As a 
result one organ after another becomes paralyzed until 
death ensues. When an animal is bloated from eating 
any kind of clover or grass, an application of a spoon- 
ful of old fashioned pine tar, to the base of the tongue, 
so it can be swallowed quickly will bring instant 
relief. The pine tar breaks up the chemical process 
by which the gas is formed and acts on the organs 
affected in the most rapid manner. Keep a box of old 
fashioned pine tar handy and it will save money and 
valuable animals. 

Another objection to pasturing alfalfa, and it is a 
serious and important one, is the pollution of the field 
with weed seed from the dropping of the stock. 

Alfalfa is too valuable to pasture in Ohio, and for 
the present it must be regarded only as a hay crop and 
as such it will prove the most valuable asset upon the 
farm. 

It is a feedmill, a wind pump and fertilizer factory 
all combined and in all the history of agriculture there 
has never been known any plant that combines so 
many valuable qualities. The best way to handle green 
alfalfa is by soiling. Cut it and haul it to the stock 
as you need it. You spend two hours and $20 driving 
to the mill to get a ton of bran. You can get a ton 
of alfalfa in one hour for $1 that will produce more 
butter, milk and meat than any ton of bran that was 



Alfalfa, "The Grass." 119 

ever ground. Alfalfa when wilted will not bloat like 
the green alfalfa eaten in the field, and everything on 
the farm will eat it but the family. 

In pasturing alfalfa much is trampled down and 
wasted. In soiling everything, leaves and stems are 
eaten and nothing left to waste. As with clover and 
timothy you ought to get twice as much by soiling as 
you can by pasturing. One acre of alfalfa used by 
soiling will support with splendid results five cows, 
as well as five acres used for pasture. 

The Kansas Experiment Station reports that ten 
milch cows were maintained for the summer on two 
acres of alfalfa without any grain, cut and fed fresh 
to them three times a day. 

At farmers' institutes and other gatherings of farm- 
ers I find a great deal of wild misinformation in 
circulation about dangers of alfalfa. "It is poisonous." 
"It is dangerous," "It is not fit to grow on the farm." 
"It bloats sheep." "It kills cattle." "It hurts hogs." 
"It injures horses' kidneys," and other wild and lurid 
talks calculated to create doubt. When I come to run 
these stories down I found that they were not born 
in ignorance, but were the spawn of malice and self 
interest. The fertilizer agents and feed men are the 
busy bees, circulating these misrepresentations and 
well may they be anxious to prevent the growth of 
alfalfa for with its advent as a general farm crop in 
Ohio, the Buckeye farmer will save thousands of dol- 
lars and become independent of these interests. 



The Value of Alfalfa as Compared with 
Grain and Other Grasses. 

(121) 



CHAPTER XV. 

THE VALUE OF ALFALFA AS COMPARED WITH GRAIN AND 
OTHER GRASSES. 

The superior value of alfalfa as feed for all kinds 
of stock, whether green or cured, lies in the large 
amount of protein the plant contains. Nature has en- 
dowed this plant with a capacity for extracting nitro- 
gen from the deep soil and the air, that no other known 
plant possesses. This, combined with the potash and 
phosphoric acid, which is secured deep down in the soil 
below the plow line, penetrating deeper than any grain 
or forage plant known to man, makes a combination 
that renders the plant not only inviting and appetizing 
to stock, but the combination of chemicals in alfalfa act 
as a tonic that braces up the system, and hastens the 
growth and development of blood and muscle, in all 
kinds of young stock, and when it is desired to push 
the stock for market, when fed with grain it produces 
blood and fat, in a shorter time and at less cost than 
any other forage plant. 

The following table from a bulletin issued by the 
New York Experiment Station, gives the comparative 
feeding values of several staple feeding stuffs and 
shows how alfalfa leads all the others : 



(123) 



124 



Alfalfa, "The Grass. 



u 


(U u 


o 




o< 


rS O- 






u 








rt 


•O -M 


e^ 




u 


'^5 "* ^- 


b^ 


-2 C «^ 
^ C re 


Q 


H 


Pounds. 


Pounds. 


8,000 


5,280 


5,800 


3,800 


5,220 


3.200 


3,120 


2,521 


3,500 


2 , 000 


3.400 


3,000 


3,500 


2,750 


2,500 


1,800 






Alfalfa 

Corn, entire plant 

Red clover 

Oats and peas. . . . 

Timothy 

Rutabagas 

Mangels 

Sugar beets 



Pounds. 

34,100 
28,000 
18,000 
13,000 
10,000 
31,700 
25,000 
17,800 



Pounds. 

875 
300 
491 
350 
228 
279 
232 
213 



The following table prepared by the Texas Ex- 
periment Station gives an anaylsis of various feeds 
showing the digestible material and chemical elements : 



Alfalfa, "The Grass. 



126 



Q 



Digestible nu- 
trients in 100 
pounds. 



o 
Ph 



J3 



c3 



w 



Fertilizer con- 
stituents in 1000 
pounds. 



o 

O 



Hays : 

Alfalfa 

Cowpea 

Oat hay 

Fodder corn 

Sorghum 

Cotton seed hulls. 
Green Feeds: 

Alfalfa 

Cowpea 

Oat fodder 

Corn silage 

Sorghum 

Rape 

Grains : 

Wheat bran 

Cotton seed meal. 

Corn 

Cowpea 

Cotton seed 



91.6 
89.3 
91.1 

57.8 

82.04 

88.9 

28.2 
16.4 
37.8 
20.9 
82.4 
14.0 

88.1 
91.8 
89.1 

85.2 
89.7 



11.0 

10.8 

4.3 

2.5 

2.4 

.3 

3.9 
1.8 
1.6 
.9 
2.4 
1.5 

12.2 
37.2 
7.9 
18.3 
12.5 



39.6 
38.6 
46.4 
34.6 
40.6 
33.1 

12.7 

8.7 

18.9 

11.3 

4.1 

8.1 

39.2 
16.9 
66.7 
54.2 

30.0 



1.2 
1.1 

1.5 
1.2 
1.2 

1.7 

.5 

i.'o 

.7 

1.2 

.2 

2.7 

12 2 

4.'3 

1.1 

17.3 



21.9 
19.5 



5.1 
5.2 



17.6 

'6^9 

7.2 
2.7 
4.9 

2.8 



5.4 

'2!5 

1.3 
1.0 
1.3 
1.1 



4.5 

26.7 
67.9 
18.2 
33.3 



1.5 

28.9 

28.8 
7.0 



31.3 



12.7 



16.8 
14.7 



8.9 

i6!2 

5.6 
3.1 
3.8 
3.7 



3.6 

16.] 

8.7 
4.0 



11.7 



From the information contained in this table, F. D. 
Coburn, secretary of the Kansas Board of Agricul- 
ture, says, "That five tons of alfalfa hay contains i,ioo 
pounds of protein equal to this food element in 



126 Alfalfa, 'The Grass." 

Pounds. 

Cotton seed meal 2,956 

Linseed meal 3 , 754 

Wheat bran 9,016 

Cowpea hay 10 , 185 

Red clover hay 16,176 

Timothy hay 39,285 

This shows a ton of alfalfa in feeding value is about 
equal to two tons of clover hay, or four tons of timothy 
— an acre of alfalfa will produce more nutriment than 
five acres of clover or ten acres of timothy. I am 
convinced that an acre of alfalfa in Ohio will produce 
as much feed as ten acres of any grass that grows in 
the state. Every farmer that plants an acre of alfalfa 
adds ten acres to his farm and he saves in labor and 
expense, for the labor and expense of growing and 
harvesting a ton of alfalfa is no greater than in making 
clover hay and timothy, and in the alfalfa at the same 
cost you are getting three times as much feed and 
three times the value, and on less land you can sup- 
port twice the amount of stock without danger of 
your crop failing. For after a stand of Alfalfa is se- 
cured, hot dry weather never destroys the yield. The 
crop is lighter in a long dry spell, but there is never a 
total failure as of other grasses and grains in drouth. 

Alfalfa settles all trouble about planting sorghum, 
Kafir-corn and other forage crops to carry the stock 
through August when the pastures dry up. 

An analysis of Alfalfa and other feeds, one place 
in one state can not always determine the value of the 



Alfalfa, 'The Grass/' 127 

same crop in another state. The different soil, climate 
and rainfall must make a wide difference in the 
chemical composition of all plants. 

I do not believe we can raise as much Alfalfa per 
acre in Ohio as they do in Kansas, but the soil is 
stronger and the Ohio grown Alfalfa is richer in food 
elements. 

Some experiment stations in the West have made 
investigations to determine the feeding value of the 
various cuttings during the season, and report that 
the first crop of alfalfa is richer and better than other 
crops. This is known to be so with red clover in 
Ohio and I supposed that it would hold good with 
alfalfa, but after feeding it to horses, hogs and milch 
cows for four years, I find that the last or fourth 
cutting of alfalfa in September is the most nutritious. 
and if samples of the four cuttings are laid before 
the stock for them to choose they always select the 
last cutting first and eat it before touching others. 
I guess they know which is the best. 

All who have had any experience in feeding any 
kind of stock for market have unanimously reported 
that greater gains in less time with less grain and less 
cost can be made with alfalfa than with any other 
forage that has ever been fed. All kinds of young 
stock make better growth of bone, muscle frame, hair 
and blood on alfalfa, and can be finished off with grain 
in a shorter time and at less expense than grain alone, 
or with ^''^i^ ^nd any other rough feed, These are 



128 Alfalfa, "The Grass/' 

facts so well established that no one has been found to 
dispute them. 

One acre of alfalfa each season will produce as 
much nutriment as two acres of corn, at one fourth the 
cost. It can be easily seen that man, who raised and 
feeds alfalfa to his stock had a wide margin of gain 
and profit over the man who does not raise or feed 
alfalfa. 

Mr. H. M. Cattrell, who spent twenty one years 
on the Kansas Agriculture farm and urged and aided 
the introduction and extended growth of alfalfa on all 
Kansas farms, gives the following valuable informa- 
tion on the feeding value of alfalfa : 

"On the Agricultural College farm, during the 
winter of 1901-2, we were obliged to feed our young 
stock alfalfa hay only, as no other roughage could be 
obtained at a reasonable price. Our two and three 
year-old pure bred heifers were fed alfalfa hay only, 
without any grain whatever, from September 2, 1901, 
to April 4, 1902 — 214 days — and made an average 
daily gain of one and two-tenths pounds per head. 
The largest gains and the best conditions of the 
heifers were secured when twenty-three pounds of hay 
per head were fed daily. This shows that alfalfa hay 
furnished a maintenance ration through the winter 
months, and, in addition a gain of 104 pounds for each 
ton fed. These cattle ran loose in a lot fenced with 
wire, and had a broad shed opening on the south for 
shelter. The heifers at the close of feeding were in 



Alfalfa, "The Grass/' 1^9 

such a condition of fiesh and hair that visiting* East- 
ern feeders were sure that oil-meal had been fed. 

"At this station pigs were pastured throughout the 
summer on alfalfa with a light feeding of corn. After 
deducting- the probable gain from the corn the gain 
per acre from the alfalfa pasture was 776 pounds of 
pork. One lot of fattening hogs were fed all the grain 
they would eat ; another lot all the grain and dry al- 
falfa hay they would cat. The lot having the hay made 
a gain of 868 pounds of pork per ton of alfalfa hay. 
Alfalfa should form part of the daily ration of every 
growing pig and of all stock hogs. Hundreds of brood 
sows were carried through the past winter on alfalfa 
hay, without grain, and had large litters. It pays, 
though, to feed some grain. 

"With scrub cows fed alfalfa hay and Kafir-corn 
grain, at ordinary prices for feed, butter fat was pro- 
duced at a cost of feed for seven cents per pound. 
On the College farm, young cattle are wintered on 
alfalfa hay and corn fodder, Kafir-corn fodder, anrl 
sorghum fodder, and made through the winter a good 
growth without grain. 

"A stockman in Rice County, Kansas, made a gain 
of five pounds per day per head on steers for forty- 
seven days with alfalfa hay and corn. In ordinary 
feeding, 1,000 pounds of grain are required to put on 
100 pounds of gain on a fattening steer. With alfalfa 
hay and corn-meal, at this station fattening steers 

9 



130 Alfalfa, "The Grass/^ 

made lOO pounds of gain for each 718 pounds of 
grain. 

"Alfalfa makes good pasturage for horses. Horse- 
men report a gain of six pounds a day per head on 
horses pastured on alfalfa and given a light ration 
of corn or Kafir-corn. Pure-bred Percheron mares 
were recently inspected by the writer that had been 
fed alfalfa hay in the winter and given alfalfa pasture 
in the summer for twelve years. They were in almost 
show condition, and had been and were regular breed- 
ers. 

"Alfalfa hay is one of the best feeds for sheep that 
is grown, and both green and dried alfalfa are valuable 
feeds for poultry. Alfalfa leaves are especially val- 
uable to color the yolk of the egg in winter. 

"On account of its efifect on the skin and hair, 
alfalfa is one of the best feeds for cattle being fitted 
for the show ring." 

In Kansas it is estimated that it costs $2 an acre 
to handle an alfalfa crop. I do not believe that the 
average cost would be more than this in Ohio. Count- 
ing rent, taxes, seed and labor, and interest and in- 
vestment my expense for harvesting alfalfa has not 
exceeded this in the last six years. 

The average cost for an acre of wheat in Ohio for 
the past three years is $13.00, the average amount 
realized per acre on wheat and straw is $14.50, leaving 
a profit of $1.50 an acre. The average yield of alfalfa 
in Ohio is five tons an acre, at the low and reasonable 
price of $10.00 a ton, this gives a gi'oss return of $50 



Alfalfa, "The Grass/' 131 

an acre and a net profit of $40. I have an acre of 
ground that yielded last year ten tons of alfalfa and 
netted $120. This is better than raising wheat at a net 
profit of $1.50 an acre. 

When you get a stand of alfalfa, if properly cared 
for, it will last a life time, and you do not have 
to plow and seed every year, as you do with wheat and 
corn. Mr. Reader, these are stupendous facts, but 
you might as well look them in the face and get into 
the alfalfa bandwagon. 

If the sheep, hog and cattle men of Ohio hope to 
face the competition of the cheap lands of the West, 
they must raise alfalfa or they will find themselves 
unable to enter the market in open competition. 

The time has come when the farmer who raises 
alfalfa and feeds it to stock, can't lose money. 

The farmer who raises stock and does not raise al- 
falfa can't compete with the alfalfa man and make any 
money. To keep up with the procession, Mr. Farmer, 
you have either got to raise alfalfa or stop farming. 
Some of you can't believe this now but facts are stub- 
born things and the rapid developments of the near 
future will burn the truth into your consciousness 
until you awake to a realization of its importance and 
act accordingly. 



Ohio Grown Alfalfa Seed. 

(133) 



CHAPTER XVI. 
Ohio Grown Alfalfa Seed. 

The final solution of the successful and profitable 
growth of alfalfa in Ohio hinges upon the production 
of Ohio grown alfalfa seed. 

Happily this problem has been solved, and alfalfa 
seed of an excellent quality and abundant yield has 
been produced in counties in the northern and south- 
ern sections of the state. 

Alfalfa seed can be produced wherever alfalfa will 
grow, and with Ohio grown seed a stand of alfalfa is 
assured. In many localities in the West, where at- 
tempts were made to introduce alfalfa, there were 
many failures where the seed was imported from 
Europe when used, but adjoining fields sowed with 
seed grown in Western states gave an excellent stand 
where the imported seed failed to germinate. 

Unfortunately it has been officially announced by 
those paid to know that alfalfa seed could not be 
grown in Ohio. This misinformation has been vigor- 
ously and eagerly repeated by seedmen. Since I began 
writing this book the seedman in a well-known firm 
has told me that alfalfa seed could not be grown in 
Ohio, because the climate was too humid, and besides 
(he wisely informed me) that if alfalfa was allowed 
to go to seed the alfalfa would die out, as the pro- 

(135) 



136 Alfalfa, "The Grass." 

duction of seed was exhaustive and destructive to the 
plant. When he told me this I showed him a sample 
of Ohio grown alfalfa seed, which was the best seed 
I ever saw. I had beside let an acre of alfalfa go to 
seed in 1904. and next year the plant came stronger 
and better than ever. 

The seednian was talking for his business and 
his interests, and not for the farmer. Every Ohio 
farmer is deeply interested in the production of Ohio 
grown alfalfa seed. The seedmen are more deeply 
interested in preventing its growth, and they use every 
argument they can muster to discourage the attempt. 

In 1904 Mr. Jos. Boardman, a neighbor, who 
has 20 acres of splendid alfalfa and who has never had 
a failure in securing a stand, stopped me in front of 
my place and showed me a letter from Director Thorne, 
of the Ohio Experiment Station, which said that alfalfa 
seed could not be grown in Ohio. I believed Mr. 
Thorne was wrong, and in his official capacity he had 
no right to give out such misleading information, 
with his limited knowledge. I told Mr. Boardman 
that alfalfa seed could be grown in Ohio, and I would 
prove it. I let an acre of my second crop on poor 
upland go to seed. It was cut and raked into wind- 
rows and left lying like clover. This was a mistake. 
The stem on which the seed pods form is slender and 
by exposure it easily breaks ofif and much of the 
seed was lost. It was hauled in and thrashed and 
yielded 79 pounds, but it was weather stained and of 
ari inferior quality. The best seed was secured on 



Alfalfa, 'The Grass." 187 

thin gravelly ground. The experiment convinced me 
that alfalfa seed could be successfully grown in Ohio 
when we learn how to handle the crop. 

There has been considerable controvesry and I 
have been severely criticised and assailed because I 
have refused to bow down and worship at the dictates 
of a small clique that have presumed to issue their 
edicts upon all agricultural questions in Ohio, which 
they have clothed in the garb of infallible sanctity, 
and it has been treason for any farmer in Ohio to 
dare to do anything, to think or tell about it, without 
a written permit from these petty tyrants, who make 
a living by farming the farmers. 

I do not mean to cast any doubt upon the work 
or discourage the good that has been done or that 
may be done by these great and wise men, when they 
confine themselves within the scope and purpose of 
the laws which gave them official existence. 

But their findings are not always final, and they 
are open to question and criticism like ordinary mor- 
tals, and when they step outside of their legitimate 
functions to bully and assail and pout and cry because 
someone dares to do different from them, having taken 
their place upon the firing line they must expect shot 
for shot. Their opinions are not sacred, and if they 
were, these persons would become so arrogant that 
both themselves and their work would be useless. 

As far as the growth of alfalfa in this state and 
the Ohio Experiment Station is concerned it has been 
lo years behind the times, and Ohio farmers have been 



138 Alfalfa, "The Grass." 

compelled to seek information upon this all important 
topic from the stations in other states. It is only 
recently that, spurred by the success by farmers and 
the agricultureal press, that the Ohio Station has 
issued its first bulletin giving any information, aid or 
encouragement to the growth of alfalfa in Ohio. 

Last year John C. Conine, of Gilbooa, Putnam 
County, Ohio, raised three acres of alfalfa seed. He 
cut the first crop for hay in June, and let the second 
crop go to seed. It was cut in September, and after 
being cured for two days was hauled to the barn. It 
thrashed out lo bushels of seed — this equals the aver- 
age yield in Kansas. After cutting the seed a crop 
of hay came on, and in October he cut a crop of hay, 
after a crop of seed, but in doing this he made a mis- 
take and injured his stand, for after cutting the seed 
he ought to have permitted the growth to remain to 
protect the plant during the winter. The seed was 
bright yellow, large, round and plump. It was as 
fine, clean, alfalfa seed as I ever saw. It was on exhi- 
bition at the Ottawa fair, and the Ohio Experiment 
Station purchased some of it. 

The second crop is the crop for seed in Ohio. 
The first is too rank and there are too many weeds 
in it. Crops after the second will not mature seed. 

High rolling clay and gravel land will produce 
the best seed in Ohio. 

Rich black loam and bottom land will produce 
plants, but not seed. The rainfall and the weather 



Alfalfa, "The Grass." 139 

are more favorable for producing a crop of alfalfa 
seed in Ohio than in Kansas. 

A thin stand of alfalfa will produce more and 
better seed than a thick stand. On the latter the 
attempt to produce a seed crop will often be a failure, 
when the crop is a certainty on a thin stand. When 
it is proposed to let a crop go to seed the field ought 
to be disked after the first hay crop is cut, to kill 
weeds and conserve moisture. 

Alfalfa blossoms do not fertilize. Bees and other 
insects are necessary to pollinize the blossoms. Al- 
falfa blossoms afford the best of feed for bees and 
produce more and better honey than any other blos- 
som. If you keep bees grow a field of alfalfa for 
seed. 

Alfalfa should be cut as soon as the pods turn 
brown. You can not wait some seasons for all the 
pods to ripen, or the earlier pods will burst and lose 
the seed. 

You can cut with a mower and rake into wind- 
rows after cutting, and leave a day to dry out, and 
haul to shelter, where the alfalfa will sweat and be 
ready to thrash. If the rain falls on the alfalfa it 
ought to be dried out before being hauled in, or the 
seed will mould and become discolored and injured. 
A good way to harvest alfalfa seed is with a binder, 
when the seed crop can be handled like oats and 
wheat and shocked up to cure for three or four days 
and then hauled to shelter. Some think the best 
way is to cut with a binder without binding, throw- 



140 Alfalfa, "The Grass/' 

ing the alfalfa aside in bunches out the way of the 
team, so that the seed will not be trampled on and 
thrashed out. 

In our climate alfalfa harvested for seed never 
ought to be stacked out. It means loss, damage and 
injury to the seed. 

The seed can be thrashed with an ordinary clover 
huller. The straw makes good feed for all kinds of 
stock. Any kind of stock will eat the stems. After 
thrashing there will not be any leaves. 

The seed should be sacked after thrashing and 
stored in a dry place free from rats and mice. Before 
selling, the seed should be thoroughly cleaned by 
running it through a fanning mill two or three times 
with riddles to remove the bad seed and dirt. 

Alfalfa seed grown in Ohio is worth $2 a bushel 
more than seeds grown in other states. Besides a 
crop of hay, a crop of seed may be raised during 
the season in Ohio, and the seed crop alone will pay 
$30 an acre, and the seed find ready sale. 



Alfalfa as a Soil Renovator, Fertilizer 
and Manure. 

(141) 



^ 


dtti 


^ 


ID# 


r\ 


r wy'M,- 




p\'i 'W^ 




^^fl "^ 




(^^' 



Sweet Cu;vex Alfalfa, Red Clover Grown on same Piece 
CF Ground, same Age, Showing Difference in the Root 
System. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

Alfalfa as a Soil Renovator, Fertilizer and 
Manure. 

The problem that confronts the thoughtful farmer 
of to-day is how to preserve the fertility of the soil 
and produce the largest crops at the least expense. 
For three generations our fathers taxed the rich, 
virgin soil with an utter disregard for future con- 
sequences ; and we are paying the penalty. But the 
evil is a blessing in disguise. It is making us think. 
Common clover has been the mainstay of farmers in 
maintaining soil fertility, by crop rotation, but has 
become a very uncertain crop, and from many causes 
has become a failure and can no longer be relied 
upon. 

Fortunately, alfalfa appears upon the scene at 
the needed time, and offers itself with all the ele- 
ments essential to restore the mechanical condition 
of the soil by supplying abundant humus to admit 
air and light, and put the land in good heart, but 
in addition it is prolific in its miraculous capacity 
not only to produce the best paying crops, but at 
the same time it enriches the soil and restores worn- 
out soils that are too poor to produce any other 
crop, by supplying the elements necessary to plant 
life. This seems impossible. The ordinary man will 

(143) 



144 Alfalfa, "The Grass/' 

not believe it until he sees it demonstrated. But 
creation was begun by God, and he has placed man 
upon the scene and given him charge of the work, 
and creation is still going on. We are told that the 
age of miracles has passed away.. In aj^riculture the 
age of miracles has just dawned, and there are won- 
ders being performed that have never been dreamed 
of in the farm philosophy of the past. To the farm- 
ing industry the greatest miracle of the age is alfalfa. 

The alfalfa accomplishes its beneficent and mirac- 
ulous work by its marvelous root system. They go 
down deeper and quicker, when not sown too thickly, 
than any other forage plant known to man. The 
roots are subsoilers, opening up the soil to air and 
ventilation, and feeding on plant food beneath the 
surface, that has not been touched by the plow and 
exhausted by constant cropping and reckless methods. 

For this reason alfalfa must take the place of 
clover, which is a shallow rooted plant compared 
with alfalfa. Red clover in rotation has been ben- 
eficial, a restorer of fertility and a soil renovator, 
but, owing to its shallow roots it has gathered its 
plant elements from the first 12 inches of the soil, 
until that has been exhausted, by the aid of clover, 
and the soil has become sick and weary, until it will 
no longer produce clover. For these reasons, great 
as has been the part red clover has played in main- 
taining fertility, it can not compare with alfalfa. 

Fertility means the presence in the soil of the 
elements necessary to the production and vigorous 



Alfalfa, "The Grass." 145 

growth of plant life. We are told that there are 12 
of these, which are more or less essential. These 
are oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen, carbon, sulphur, 
phosphorus, potash, magnesia, iron, chlorine, sodium 
and silican. Of these the first 10 are essential, but 
the farmer has little power over the supply of six 
of them. The plant obtains carbon from the air, 
and this, with oxygen and hydrogen, the plant can 
supply itself, if conditions are proper and the other 
elements present to promote plant growth. Sulphur, 
iron and magnesia and usually lime are always in the 
soil in quantities sufficient for plant life and growth. 
This leaves three elements, nitrogen, phosphorus 
and potash, which constitute the trinity of soil fer- 
tility. When these are absent the soil is dead. When 
scientific investigation demonstrated this fact, these 
elements were supplied by artificial means, and fer- 
tilizers became a commercial proposition, and farm- 
ers have been spending millions of dollars annually 
for these elements and neglecting the manure in their 
barnyards. There is no commercial fertilizer ever 
made that can equal manure in maintaining the 
humus, life and fertility of the soil. Using fertilizer 
is like drinking whisky. It may stimulate, increase 
and promote crop production for a while, but without 
manure it only hastens the depletion of the fertility 
in the soil. No soil, however rich in chemical ele- 
ments, can produce crops unless it is in such mechan- 
ical condition through the presence of humus and 
10 



146 Alfalfa, "The Grass." 

organic matter, and by cultivation, as to enable the 
growing plant to assimilate such food as is needful 
for its perfection. 

The manure pile is the successful farmer's bank 
account. He can have his check honored every time 
he draws one. It is his chemical laboratory that will 
produce each year more bacteria than was ever 
charmed to life by the scientific wizard in all the 
laboratories of the world. 

In 1905 Ohio farmers spent $2,228,190 for 230,- 
615,398 pounds of fertilizers. Last year I heard 
Mr, M. C. Thomas, of Mingo, Ohio, in a lecture 
before a Farmers' Institute, make a statement, with 
illustrations, showing that in a ton of fertilizer cost- 
ing $22.00 there was only $10.40 worth of chemicals, 
and the farmer had paid $11.60 for dirt and the priv- 
ilege of buying the few chemicals alleged to be in 
the rest of the dirt. I believe this is a fair average 
of the amount of chemicals in all fertilizers sold in 
Ohio. The farmers of Ohio paid hundreds of thou- 
sands of dollars yearly for something they never got. 

We have a law in Ohio pretending to regulate 
the sale of fertilizers. Every company selling a fer- 
tilizer in the state must have a license for each brand, 
and nmst pay so much, $20.00 or $25.00, for each 
license. This money must be paid to the Secretary 
of the State Board of Agriculture. It is used to pay 
four inspectors. Each company must furnish an 
analysis of each brand of fertilizer, and in addition 
a sample of each brand for analysis, which are made 



Alfalfa, "The Grass." 147 

and paid for by the state Board. Each firm is re- 
quired to place upon every sack a statement of the 
chemical that they claim it contains. They do this 
with eager celerity. So honest, noble and conscien- 
tious are the fertilizer philanthropists who do business 
in Ohio that in the 20 years the law has been in 
effect there has never been an arrest of a fertilizer 
firm or agent for violation of the law. The Secretary 
of the State Board of Agriculture is not a state 
officer, and yet under this law he is the only person 
empowered to bring suit for its violation or take steps 
for its execution. It is a wonderful law. It is a 
fake upon its face. It was not passed to protect the 
farmer from frauds, but to protect the fertilizer man 
from the farmer. The fertilizer companies pay so 
much spot cash to be permitted to sell their goods 
without annoyance, and they get what they pay for. 
Any surplus from the license fund goes into the 
treasury of the Board. If a farmer wants a fertilizer 
analyzed it costs $3.00 for the four principal elements, 
or $i2.cx) for an analysis. This was put in the law 
to keep the farmer from clamoring for justice. I 
used to buy fertilizers, and was swindled. I took a 
sample to Secretary Miller, and he had it analyzed. 
It was not licensed, and it did not come up to the 
analysis on the sack. I was asked to make affidavit 
by the Secretary and declined. It was his business 
to prosecute, and not mine. I bought no more fer- 
tilizer. I used alfalfa manure and got more chem- 
icals to the ton necessary to restore soil fertility, 



148 Alfalfa, "The Grass." 

with bacteria and humus, than can be found in the 
best ton of fertiHzer that was ever made. The fer- 
tihzer law of Ohio is a fraud and an imposition upon 
the farmers. It was conceived in rascahty, born in 
iniquity and has been executed solely as a hold-up 
and for the rake-off. The present Secretary of the 
State Board of Agriculture, Mr. T. L. Calvert, is 
an honest official. He has declined to take certain 
fees from the fertilizing companies that have found 
their way into the pocket of one or more Secretaries. 
The fault is in the law, and not the officer, but it is 
so framed as to subject him to constant and great 
temptation. Any lavv' so framed is a crime, and can 
only come into existence through corrupt and dis- 
honest legislators, who are looking for graft, and not 
to protect the people. 

Kentucky has a law regulating the sale of fer- 
tilizers that protects the farmer. Every brand must 
be licensed, and each sack must contain a simple 
statement of the leading elements, such as nitrogen, 
which is the chief and most expensive and most 
necessary element in the economy of agricultural 
science. If any farmer has bought fertilizer and be- 
lieves it does not contain the chemicals he thought 
he was buying he may send samples to the Experi- 
ment Station and have them analyzed at the expense 
of the state, without telling who sold or manufac- 
tured them. When the analysis is made and returned 
to him he forwards the guaranteed analysis on the 
sack, upon which the article is sold, and if there is 



Alfalfa, 'The Grass/' 149 

a discrepancy suit may be brought at once in any 
court in any county in the state. This is the kind 
of a law that we need and must have in Ohio, and 
we will have it just as soon as the farmers send honest 
men to the legislature and demand their rights. 

But let us return to our glorious alfalfa. 

According to Warrington, who is considered an 
authority : 

"The average acre of wheat will remove from the 
soil 45 pounds of nitrogen, 23 pounds of phosphoric 
acid and 30 pounds of potash. These elements are 
quoted on the market at about 17 cents per pound 
for the nitrogen, 7 cents for phosphoric acid and 4 
cents per pound for potash. This means that every 
acre of wheat removes from the ground about $7.65 
worth of nitrogen, $1.61 worth of phosphorous and 
$1.20 worth of potash. That is a total of $10.46 for 
each acre per year. 

An acre of oats will consume 50 pounds of nitro- 
gen, 20 pounds of phosphorus acid and 40 pounds of 
potash. This takes from the soil for each acre every 
year $8.50 worth of nitrogen, $1.40 worth of phos- 
phorus acid and $1.40 worth of potash, a total of 
$11.50 from each acre per year. 

The average acre of corn takes from the soil 80 
pounds of nitrogen, 30 pounds of phosphorus acid and 
70 pounds of potash. This means that if both fodder 
and grain are removed, the soil is robbed of $13.60 
worth of nitrogen, $2.10 worth of phosphorus acid 
and $2.80 worth of potash, a total of $18.50 per acre. 



150 Alfalfa, "The Grass/' 

Fifty acres of tobacco will drink up nearly $18,000 
worth of the soil's plant food in 20 years. Thousands 
of acres that formerly produced tobacco in south- 
western Ohio are as dead as brick yards. You can 
see why constant cropping without returning anything 
to the soil so speedily exhausts the fertility. 

In estimating the cost of producing a crop we 
never figure in the elements of fertility that the crop 
carries off and this is the largest item of expense. 
This is the reason that reckless farming by tenants is 
proving so injurious to our farm lands. 

A ton of alfalfa contains 40 pounds of nitrogen, 10 
pounds of phosphorus acid and 32 pounds of potash, 
the three essential elements of fertility. Last year, in 
the fifth year one acre of my alfalfa yielded ten tons 
of alfalfa which contained 400 pounds of nitrogen, 
100 pounds of phosphorus acid and 320 pounds of 
potash. These figures are so prodigius that I am 
absolutely afraid to print them. It seems almost im- 
possible, but scientists say that it is so and the feeding 
backs up the chemist and his laboratory. The Utah 
Experiment Station in a feeding test found that it took 
only 7,182 pounds of alfalfa hay to produce 705 pounds 
of beef, while to produce the same amount of beef it 
took 9,575 pounds of timothy, 11,967 pounds of red 
clover and 10,083 pounds of shredded corn fodder. 
The value of manure depends upon the character of 
the feed, and alfalfa manure is richer in the necessary 
elements of fertility than manure produced from any 
other forage plant. 



Alfalfa, "The Grass/' 161 

But here comes the problem : If alfalfa takes away 
so much of these elements how can it do it without 
depleting the fertility of the soil? The answer shows 
that alfalfa is a miracle in agriculture. A colored 
neighbor who was driving by when I was harvesting 
my fourth crop last year, said, "That stuff must be 
powerful wearing on the soil." When I told him it 
left the soil renewed and richer he scratched his head, 
smiled and drove on. I don't think that he believed 
what I said but he was too polite to say what he 
thought. 

The main or top root of the alfalfa goes straight 
down, as may be seen in the illustration of young 
alfalfa plants. This root continues to go down as 
the plant grows, and the root is always longer than the 
plant on top of the ground. This root is the power 
house of the plant. Its mission is to look for moisture 
and food to keep the machinery in motion. As the 
plant matures it begins to put out lateral roots, eight 
and ten inches long in all directions, but the object 
of these roots are not to gather food or moisture, but 
to discharge the surplus, that the plant cannot as- 
similate or use. 

The plant above the ground gathers nitrogen from 
the air and carries it down to meet the water and 
chemical food which the main root is bringing from 
the dark earth beneath. The first eight inches of the 
root system is a fertilizer factory, combining the ele- 
ments from the air and the earth for the plant's use, 
and carrying off the surplus to deposit it in the surface 



152 Alfalfa, "The Grass/' 

soil. I think the cause of the yellows in young alfalfa 
is because the main root and top have produced more 
of the chemical elements than the plants can digest. 
When the small lateral roots have performed their 
mission they die, but as soon as conditions arise and 
the combination and supply of the plant is greater than 
the plant can digest, new roots are sent out to discharge 
the surplus in the soil. The reason the plant is helped 
by cutting hastens the development of the lateral roots 
and the plant again takes up its normal functions and 
becomes strong and vigorous. The nodules we read so 
much about, always form on the lateral root system 
and never on the main root. An alfalfa root when 
first dug up has a strong smell of chemicals on the 
first eight inches. 

This process of putting out lateral roots which die 
and are renewed goes on during the life of the plant 
and the soil in an alfalfa field is constantly being 
renovated and enriched with those valuable elements — 
nitrogen, phosphoric acid and potash. 

The fact that all alfalfa fields when used for other 
crops produce double what they did before, is well 
known to all men in the fertilizer business, and the 
general growth of alfalfa in Ohio means to enable 
farmers to restore and maintain the fertility of the 
soil without spending his money for fertilizers. It 
means to increase his profits and reduce his expenses, 
by making the farm independent of the feedman and 
the fertilizer men. 

The false and malicious warfare that has been made 



Alfalfa, "The Grass." 153 

to prevent the growth of alfalfa in Ohio is a natural 
fight of selfish men to protect their own interests and 
make the farmers pay tribute year after year, to secure 
corporate dividends and make millions. 

For the reasons given alfalfa is the best cover or 
nurse crop that can be planted in young and old 
orchards. It brings up fertility and moisture to the 
surface soil and feeds the growing- trees. Cutting the 
crop for hay pays the way, with splendid returns and 
does not exhaust the fertility like other crops. 



Alfalfa in Rotation of Crops. 

(155) 




Alfalfa on Bottom Ground, Flooded and Heaved Out. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

ALFALFA IN ROTATION OF CROPS. 

At the Farmers' Institute, a gloomy John, who be- 
longs to the class of men who would trample a bless- 
ing under foot, to grab a calamity by the coat tail, and 
embrace it as a long lost twin brother, said, "If we all 
go to raising alfalfa, the market will be overstocked, 
and we can't get any thing for it." Hardly. You 
can't raise too much alfalfa. One acre of alfalfa will 
feed as much stock as ten acres of any other grass or 
forage, and when you have got it, you don't have 
to plow and plant each year. This saving in labor 
alone is a tremenduous item. More alfalfa means 
more stock. It means to double the number of horses, 
cattle, sheep and hogs in Ohio. It means to fit them 
for market at much less cost, than with other feeds. 
It means an increase to the farmer's profits. It will 
enable him on high priced land to compete with the 
Western farmer. It means to restore the fertility of 
the soil. It means to increase the amount of manure, 
and to double its value. This means to save a million 
of dollars a year to Ohio farmers in fertilizers alone. 
Alfalfa will become the prime and most important 
factor in crop rotations. 

Red clover has been the main stay in crop rotations 
in maintaining soil fertility, but it is an increasing fail- 

(167) 



158 Alfalfa, "The Grass/' 

ure on all kinds of soil. Alfalfa will take its place, 
renovate the land so that it will be possible to grow 
red clover again. 

Of the million of acres of tillable land in Ohio 
in 1905 117,166 acres of clover sod were plowed under 
for manure. The most prosperous agricultural coun- 
ties in Ohio are those that plowed under the most 
clover in crop rotation. Darke County, the most pro- 
ductive county in Ohio, with a large German element, 
plows under 16,779 acres annually for manure. This 
is a thousand times more than is plowed under by 
some counties, but the results can be seen in the mag- 
nificent yields of all cereals and tobacco in Darke 
County. 

In a majority of the counties less than a thousand 
acres are plowed under. As a rule, the counties that 
plow under the least clover purchase the most fertil- 
izer. These methods must stop, or Ohio will soon 
become kankrupt, as far as her agricultural interests 
are concerned. 

Alfalfa in rotation of four or five years, on all but 
our hill farms, will remedy this growing evil. Once 
the hill farms get a stand of alfalfa it never ought to 
be disturbed. 

This year we plowed up the first piece of ground 
that I planted in alfalfa. It had been in alfalfa four 
years. It was turned into permanent pasture and 
after the cattle were on it a year the alfalfa all dis- 
appeared except upon the crest of a hill. The ground 
fias been discribed — 'Tt is high, gravelly, heavy cla.y." 



Alfalfa, "The Grass." 169 

Several attempts were made but I could never raise a 
grain crop on it that would pay for the seed. It was 
planted in corn on the nth of May this year. The 
result is amazing. The best corn on my place, or that 
T have seen anywhere, is on this clay gravel clay hill. 
I am writing this in July and the corn is tasseling out 
while much of the corn around it is only knee high. 
The corn on the hill is stronger and better than that 
in the creek bottom, which is Miami loam. Some of 
this land has had manure applied, but where the alfalfa 
sod was plowed under the stand is a foot higher and 
much stronger and the corn will be heavier and 
better. 

Here I wish to make a prediction that will be real- 
ized in Ohio in ten years. 

Alfalfa will take the place of wood pulp in the 
manufacture of all kinds and grades of paper. Thous- 
ands of tons raised in Ohio will be used for this pur- 
pose, and the supply will not equal the demand. I 
have predicted this for two years and I have been 
laughed at. I will laugh later. Frank Carpenter, 
who is now in Africa, writes that English paper mak- 
ers are buying alfalfa, and have warehouses at ma:iy 
of the northern ports to store and ship it to England 
to use in making paper and it makes a higher and 
finer grade of paper than wood pulp. Alfalfa sells for 
this purpose at ten dollars a ton in Africa. 

Alfalfa will be used in the place of the higlicr 
grade of woods to make furniture and for inside 
finishings, etc. It will be pressed into logs and sawed 



160 Alfalfa, "The Grass." 

into planks. It will take on a glaze and make a 
hard surface that will equal in color and beauty our 
richest walnuts and maples. 

I just want to make this prophesy, so that when I 
am dead and gone, somebody will dig it out of some 
forgotten library and nail it on my tombstone. 

Besides, this volume is so serious that I want to 
slip in a few lines that the hired scribblers and other 
parasites may have something to laugh at. 

On a farm in Monroe County, Kansas, a field that 
had been in alfalfa for three years, was plowed and 
sowed to wheat. The first crop in 1900 yielded 40 
bushels to the acre and in 1901 the second crop yielded 
41 bushels per acre. Adjoining fields on the same 
farm with the same soil yielded only 15 bushels to the 
acre. Isn't the alfalfa a marvelous plant? How much 
fertilizer? Or what kind of fertilizer can do this? 
None that was ever made. 

Prof. B. C. Buffum, at the Wyoming Experiment 
Station, selected an area of land and seeded one-half 
of it to alfalfa. The alfalfa was allowed to grow on 
this land for five years. The other half of the area 
was cropped with grain crops and potatoes in a rota- 
tion for the same five years. At the end of this time 
the entire area was plowed up and planted to field 
crops. The yield of wheat on the alfalfa land was 
sixty per cent greater than on the other, and the grain 
weighed more to the bushel. 

The yield of oats was forty-eight per cent greater 
on the alfalfa land, the grain stood a foot and a half 



Alfalfa, "The Grass." 161 

higher, and the heads were two inches longer. The 
yield of marketable potatoes was increased sixty-two 
per cent on the alfalfa land; the potatoes averaged 
larger in size. The yields per acre were as follows : 

Alfalfa land. Other land. 

Wheat 30 bushels. 18 bushels. 

Oats 78 " 37 

Potatoes 81 " 52 

The increased yield of crops on land on which al- 
falfa has grown does not come alone from the addition 
of plant-food to the soil which alfalfa makes. In 
many soils the mechanical improvement made by al- 
falfa has a greater influence in increasing the yield. 
Alfalfa roots are large and abundant, and they pene- 
trate deeply. When alfalfa is plowed these roots 
decay, adding vegetable matter to the soil, and pro- 
viding a passage for the air to go down to the subsoil 
and loosen it. On stiff clay lands this addition of the 
vegetable matter mellows the soil ; on sandy lands it 
helps bind the soil particles together. On both classes 
of soil the addition of decayed vegetable mold in- 
creases the power of soil to absorb and retain moisture 
and make better tilth." 

This evidence could be swelled into a volume. The 
testimony is marvelous as to the certainty and capacity 
of alfalfa as a restorer of the fertility of the soil. 

Alfalfa sod is hard to break when the stand is 
heavy. It requires a sharp plow and a good team, 

U 



162 Alfalfa, "The Grass." 

The plant does not have to be turned under to produce 
fertility. In Ohio hay can be cut in June, July and 
August, and the field then turned under for wheat. 
But the better way is to pasture the field close with 
sheep or cattle late in the fall, and leave it without 
protection during the winter when it will disappear. 
The roots rot in the ground and leave it full of holes 
and it can be more easily plowed in the spring and 
planted to corn, followed in rotation by wheat, then 
oats, after which alfalfa can again be seeded in July 
and cut the next spring and no time or crop will be 
lost. 



Reseeding Aifajfa in Ohio. 

(163) 



CHAPTER XIX. 

RESEEDING ALFALFA IN OHIO. 

Where a stand has failed in spots, it is desirable to 
secure a stand on the vacant places, without plowing 
the whole field. This has been successfully done in 
Kansas and by Mr. Clark in Connecticut, by disking 
the field and reseeding the vacant spots. I have never 
tried it but if I wished to secure a perfect stand I 
would, but this is one of the problems that must be 
worked out by the practical and intelligent farmer in 
the future. 

When an attenmpt has been made to secure a stand 
of alfalfa, and there has been a failure from any cause 
and there are only a few scattered plants, don't give up, 
and plant some other crop, as a neighbor of mine did 
this year. He didn't like the stand and plowed it up 
and planted millet. He planted alfalfa in May and 
he should have gone right back in the field in July 
and disked it and harrowed it and reseeded to alfalfa, 
and he would have increased his chances of getting a 
stand a hundred per cent. Now he will get millet 
to deplete the fertility of the surface of the soil and 
have more trouble than ever in getting a stand of 
alfalfa on that piece of ground. Don't be discouraged. 
Don't be a quitter. Other crops that you have grown 
have failed but you don't give up trying again for one 

(165) 



166 Alfalfa, "The Grass." 

failure. If you have a mellow seed bed and cultivated 
until the weeds are killed and sow before a rain, you 
can't fail. If you do fail it is your own fault and not 
the fault of the alfalfa. It will grow most any place 
but in a duck pond. 



Alfalfa in the Towns and Cities of 
Ohio. 

(167) 



CHAPTER XX. 

ALFALFA IN THE TOWNS AND CITIES OF OHIO. 

There is not much market for alfalfa hay in Ohio 
towns. Misinformation and slanders about it as a feed 
have created a prejudice, but knowledge of its merit 
is slowly spreading and the livery and salesman, and 
the dairymen will soon refuse to buy timothy and 
clover when they can get alfalfa. Mow room is quite 
an item in the cities, a bale of alfalfa weighs from 20 
to 40 pounds more than clover or timothy and con- 
tains three times as much feed, occupies less space and 
less labor to handle. Alfalfa does not constipate 
horses like timothy and does not make them slobber 
like clover. 

In every town and city in Ohio there are idle lots, 
growing up in unsightly weeds. These can all be 
planted in alfalfa and the ordinary city lot will pro- 
duce enough feed if planted in alfalfa to feed a horse 
or cow for a year, thus saving feed, paying taxes, 
saving money and adding to the beauty and healthful- 
ness of the neighborhood. These lots are usually well 
drained and well adapted to the conditions required 
to produce alfalfa. 

Prof. H. F. Rauh of Ottawa, after an alfalfa lec- 
ture four years ago, came to me and said he had two 
city lots and asked if they would produce alfalfa, and 

(169) 



170 Alfalfa, "The Grass/' 

if it would pay to plant it. I told him yes, gave him 
such information as I could and urged him to plant 
alfalfa. He did so. He got a stand without any 
trouble, and for three years he has fed his cow on the 
feed produced on those two lots and has made the 
lots more than pay the taxes. 



Alfalfa and Moisture. 

(171) 



CHAPTER XXI. 

ALFALFA AND MOISTURE. 

There is one marvelous function that the alfalfa 
plant performs that has been entirely overlooked by 
the scientific men and writers, and that is its power 
to bring up the moisture and disseminate it in the 
atmosphere, increasing the rainfall and aiding vegeta- 
tion not only in the immediate vicinity but afar off. 

Every alfalfa field is a pond of water. 

Two or three years after I started to growing al- 
falfa my attention was drawn to this feature and I be- 
gan an investigation. I had a field of corn with alfalfa 
on two sides of it. During a dry season in 1903, when 
there was no dew and little humidity in the air I was 
surprised to find the jewels of dew sparkling in the 
corn every morning. I did not understand where it 
came from or what caused it. Upon reading I was 
told that a tree covering four hundred square feet 
would draw up and evaporate four tons of water a 
day. This is a part of nature's plan, which is so perfect 
and beautiful in all of its operations, for drawing the 
water from the earth to supply the air with moisture 
and sustain vegetation. As I became familiar with 
the habits of alfalfa and saw how deep rooted it was, 
I found that the top or main root was a pump drawing 
the moisture from the hidden recesses of the earth for 

(173) 



174 Alfalfa, "The Grass." 

the growing plant to use and dissipate the surplus 
in the air. An acre of alfalfa will evaporate twenty 
tons of water a day. I have tried to induce the scien- 
tific gentlemen, who draw large salaries, to solve such 
problems, to make a study of the question, but being 
a clodhopper my suggestions were scorned. 

Several years ago I wrote to Prof. A. M. Ten Eyck, 
of the Kansas Experiment Station, and asked him if 
any thought had been given to the subject of the in- 
creased rainfall, with the rapid increase of the acreage 
of alfalfa in that state. He said no investigation had 
been made of the subject, but there was no doubt that 
alfalfa had influenced the rainfall. 

The state of Kansas was once the bottom of a vast 
ocean. It slopes gradually from the Rocky Mountains 
to the east, with a fall of eight feet to the mile. The 
streams disappear in summer, but the land has under- 
ground streams. In many places water has been se- 
cured by artesian wells for irrigation purposes. 
The alfalfa has tapped these hidden sources, and daily 
pumps millions of tons of water into the air. Years 
ago winds from the southwest used to sweep over 
Kansas and burn up the crops. Since Kansas has 
such a vast acreage of alfalfa this disaster has not 
happened, and not only Kansas but the whole Missis- 
sippi Valley has been benefitted by this phenomena, 
owing to the vast acreage of alfalfa in the Western 
states. 

After studying this problem I wished to see if facts 
drawn from different sources would sustain this con- 



Alfalfa, "The Grass." 176 

elusion. First I secured from the Kansas Experi- 
ment Station statistics showing the growth of the al- 
falfa. In 1887 there was no alfalfa grown in Kansas. 
In 1890, 12,000 acres were reported and this has in- 
creased by leaps until last year there were 1,200,000 
acres of alfalfa grown in Kansas. The authorities of 
Kansas Station kindly sent me the weather reports, 
showing the rainfall for twenty years, and the rainfall 
has increased during the years that alfalfa has been 
grown and a striking confirmation of the theory I have 
presented and that alfalfa has induced the increased 
rainfall is that this increase is entirely during the grow- 
ing months from May to September. 

The average rainfall in Kansas for twenty years 
from 1887 to 1906 was 27.77 inches. For six years 
from 1887 to 1892 the average rainfall for the state 
before the introduction of alfalfa, was as follows : 

Inches. 

1887 23.07 

1888 24.17 

1889 20.47 

1890 20.65 

1891 30.90 

1892 29.06 

The total rainfall for this six years was 157.22 
inches, a yearly average of 26.22 inches or nearly an 
inch less than the yearly average for twenty years. 
The annual rainfall for the last six years, since the 
extensive growth of alfalfa in the state was as fol- 
lows: 



176 Alfalfa^ "The Grass." 

Inches. 

1901 22.15 

1902 35.50 

1903 33.46 

1904 32.86 

1905 32.09 

1906 29.48 

The total rainfall for this period was 185.54 inches, 
or 28.32 inches more than in the period before alfalfa 
was introduced. The average in the latter period was 
30.92 inches, or three inches above the twenty-year 
average. In three out of the six years in the first 
period the heaviest monthly rainfall was in August, 
ranging from four to six inches. In five out of the 
six years of the last period the heaviest monthly rain- 
fall was in the month of May and June and ranged 
from 6 to 8 inches. There is no such increase or 
fluctuation in the months when alfalfa is dormant, be- 
tween October and March. 

I am convinced upon investigation that our scien- 
tific friends will find that the extended area of alfalfa 
has caused the increase in the rainfall. 

In Ohio we are told that we have skinned the 
earth of the forests and the water has run ofT and 
caused a change in the climate and lessened the avail- 
able humidity in the air for the forces of nature to 
send forth in frequent and gracious showers to refresh 
vegetation. Alfalfa on our hill sides in southern 
Ohio will repair this mistake. The fields of alfalfa 
will hold the moisture and prevent the water from 



Alfalfa, "The Grass." itf 

running off and washing the soil and carrying the 
fertiUty off of the land into the streams. In growing 
and dry seasons alfalfa will bring the moisture up 
from the earth and discharge it in the air, to refresh 
vegetation and encourage its growth. 

When the world was created it was turned over to 
man, and he must use his brains to carry on the pro- 
cesses of nature and when nature halts the remedy 
is waiting for man to lay his hands upon and compel 
nature to co-operate with him to produce the results 
he desires to accomplish. 



*12 



Alfalfa and Farm Values in Ohio. 

(179) 



CHAPTER XXII. 

ALFALFA AND FARM VALUES IN OHIO. 

There is no factor that will play a more important 
part in the value and prosperity of the agricultural 
interests of Ohio than alfalfa. 

There are thousands of acres of land in Ohio, that 
have been valuable for their timlier. The land has 
been cleared of this, and has little value for farming 
purposes. Much of this land can be had for $io an 
acre. Every acre of it that can be touched by the 
plow and tickled with a disc harrow will produce 
alfalfa worth fifty dollars an acre per year. In al- 
falfa this land will become the best sheep country in 
the world. It will maintain stock of all kinds. The 
prosperity of the West has come solely through alfalfa, 
and the man that grows it. Thousands of acres of 
sandy, clay soils in Kansas and Nebraska were sold 
for from $2 to $5 until it was found that they would 
grow alfalfa and these lands are now selling for from 
$30 to $75 per acre. Those lands used to rent for $1 
an acre and when seeded in alfalfa rent for $5 an 
acre. Alfalfa will increase the selling and rental value 
of land. It will pay the taxes. It will bring improve- 
ments ; it will satisfy the landlord ; it will make the 
tenant more prosperous and happy ; it will make better 

(181 1 



182 Alfalfa, "The Grass." 

homes and better men and women. We can not com- 
prehend the wide and surprising influence that such a 
plant will exert upon society, civilization and on our 
people. 



In Conclusion. 

(183) 



CHAPTER XXIII. 
In Conclusion. 

I have written — I have tried to write all I know — 
all I have learned by failures and successes — by dig- 
ging in the dirt, by hard toil and constant study. 
It is not much, but it is the best I can do, and if I 
can induce my brother farmers to grow alfalfa my 
work will not have been in vain. I never expected to 
write a book on alfalfa. I shall be assailed for doing 
so. But that "still small voice" that Socrates heeded 
kept prodding me and saying "Write!" "Write!" 
"Write!" It pulled me to the task, and I have writ- 
ten. 

Since the task was begun some cheese-paring pig- 
mies have said "that I was not a scientific farmer." 
I am not, but I am not afraid to work, and I prefer 
to go to good mother nature, like a child at the knee, 
and coax her secrets from her bosom, rather than 
waste my time listening to the chestnuts and prattle 
of the so-called scientists. I am tired of the arrogance 
and impudence of these self-constituted scien- 
tific saints who presume upon their ignorance and 
call it knowledge. They seem to think that they have 
a monopoly of wisdom, and no man can get into the 
storehouse unless they turn the key. As Job said: 

(185) 



186 Alfalfa, "The Grass." 

"No doubt ye are the people, and all wisdom will 
die with' you." 

Since my life has become attached to the land 
and identified with its interests I view society from 
an entirely different standpoint and have a broader 
scope and view of the blessings of agriculture as 
the foundation of all progress, peace and prosperity. 
I have been surprised and my indignation has been 
aroused to find that the self-appointed agencies for 
aiding the farmer live by preying upon him, and 
deceive him by false pretenses. They thrive by farm- 
ing the farmer. Every institution and agency created 
by law and supported by taxation to encourage agri- 
culture is under the seductive and mercenary influ- 
ence of corporate greed and legalized rascality. These 
parasites that live on and off the toil of the farmer 
are as busy as tumble bugs, rolling their little ball 
of manure down the great highway of progress, and 
think they are moving the world; but something will 
soon pass over them and crush the ball and bug in 
the dust, and then the farmer will come into his own. 

The farmers' institutes of Ohio have been free, 
and it has been the only unbought forum in which 
the farmer has secured a hearing. 

Time, with its rapid development of events, will 
soon demonstrate the truth of every statement I have 
made in this book upon the growth and possibilities 
and untold value of alfalfa in Ohio. 

The skipping lambs and bleating sheep upon ten 
thousand hills; the busy, humming bees and insects 



Alfalfa, "The Grass." 187 

in the purple blossoms ; the lowing herds of con- 
tented cattle ; the sleek and well-fed horses ; the crow- 
ing roosters and cackling hens ; the thrifty swine 
filling the air with resonant grunt of satisfaction — 
will chorus in harmony the praises of alfalfa. 

Go plant alfalfa. 

If you fail blame me. 

If you succeed, as you will, lift up your eyes lo 
the blue arch of heaven and join all animated cration 
in the song of gratitude and praise to the Bountiful 
Giver of All Good for the glorious gift of alfalfa in 
Ohio. 

July 20, 1907. 



SEP U 1907 



